


Softer than Before (All the Second Chances)

by furiosity



Series: Second Chances [1]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: M/M, Polyamory, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-18
Updated: 2012-09-30
Packaged: 2017-11-14 13:09:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 30,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/515561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/furiosity/pseuds/furiosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Kagami's brain is a much stranger place than he thinks, Kuroko is not as mature as everyone thinks, and Aomine is Aomine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I'd Rather Tame a Velociraptor

**Author's Note:**

> This story is about a polyamorous (triad) relationship. If you enjoy the seme/uke dynamic or have strict seme/uke preferences based on whatever criteria, this is not the fic for you. Placebo's _Ask for Answers_ inspired the title.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Featuring the quest for a new dream, Aomine's questionable street fashion, bad approaches to planning the future, Kagami's failure as manga artist and his success as a real estate agent, the care and feeding of metaphorical velociraptors, militant old ladies, the requisite cherry blossom graduation party, Kuroko as the creepy drunk train guy, and Alexandra Garcia as the voice of Kagami's conscience.

  
_These bonds are shackle-free_  
 _Wrapped in lust and lunacy._  
 _Tiny touch of jealousy_  
 _These bonds are shackle-free._  
Placebo, "Ask for Answers"

It's love at first Phantom Shot.

Taiga doesn't know what it is about Kuroko's new skill that makes him go from intense focus on the game to damn near heart attack. Maybe it's the stance that draws the eye and makes the ball vanish amid the blur of jerseys and sweaty faces, the squeak of shoes and the murmuring crowd. Maybe it's the way Kuroko swept his forearm across his brow after the shot goes in, or the tiny little smile that barely touches his eyes.

Who the hell knows?

That Taiga's interested in guys isn't news to him; he's known that since forever. He just never knew Kuroko was his type. Which is just like Kuroko: he shows up out of nowhere, claims to have been there the whole time, and the only way you can forget he's there is if Kuroko wants you to.

The problem is that Kuroko's not the only person on Taiga's mind.

For months, Aomine's been the unwitting star of Taiga's bedtime fantasies. Taiga's feelings for Aomine are a heady mix of loathing and admiration; every time he looks at Aomine, he commits another part of him to fantastically detailed memory. A recently favourite fantasy is one where Taiga accidentally walks into the Touou locker room, conveniently empty save for Aomine with his top off and his shorts low enough to rate public indecency charges.

Taiga thought defeating Touou would put an end to all of that, figuring he was using Aomine as a sexual object to feel more powerful -- Alex taught him that this happened even to straight male athletes, something to do with boys being raised to think that they own who they fuck -- but his desire for Aomine has intensified instead. He doesn't want to claim Aomine's body for a plaything. He wants to know what Aomine's like when he's not sneering. He wants to know the Aomine Kuroko remembers.

Now Kuroko is in the same space as Aomine, commanding as much attention as Aomine. On top of that, it really does feel like Kuroko has always been there; Taiga just hasn't noticed him until now.

Taiga hasn't thought about what it means. Maybe when he's older, he'll think back to now and figure it out, but it's not like he would ever act on these emotions. The only fantasies he cares about bringing to life are about basketball.

 _My brain is weird,_ Taiga concludes. _But I have basketball, so I don't care._

The match against Yousen continues.

*

It's basketball that keeps Taiga's weird brain in check all through high school: the Generation of Miracles isn't going to surpass itself.

It's not until the Winter Cup in his second year that Seirin takes down Rakuzan, though they lose to Kaijou in the semifinal. Seirin reigns at the Interhigh that year, but only because Aomine's studying abroad and Touou loses to Seihou. Seirin loses the Winter Cup to Touou in Taiga's third year.

There is bittersweet finality in the loss for Taiga: graduation is mere weeks away, and it's the last time he will play against Aomine, unless they face each other at the university level. Maybe he'll even have to wait until the professional level if Aomine's not going to university. It's not like Taiga can just ask him; he doesn't even have Aomine's mail address.

He hasn't worried much about entering a university. Scouts from various schools have approached him since the middle of second year. He picked Tokai because that's where Kuroko's going -- and Kuroko picked it because Tokai's Shonan basketball club in Kanagawa is the strongest. Taiga's only going to university to make his parents happy, anyway; business administration interests him about as much as underwater basket weaving. He wants to keep playing basketball.

Being number one in Japan, if only for a few months, turned out to be less special than Taiga expected. He has found friendship and made bitter enemies and fell in love on the basketball court: the fight to be number one was more than he found at the top.

He is waiting for a new dream.

Standing in front of the new student list boards on Tokai's Shonan campus with Kuroko by his side, Taiga feels the dream beyond the next gust of spring wind. He'll catch its scent if he holds still a little longer, and maybe it will bring him the courage to take Kuroko's hand.

"There you are, Kagami-kun," Kuroko says, pointing at the list of examinee numbers. "Congratulations."

The scout warned him not to tell anyone that he turned in a blank examination paper. Taiga figures it would be okay to tell Kuroko. Just not here. He doesn't think Kuroko would mind, but someone who could overhear them might.

"Uh, yeah," he says, scratching his nose to hide his lying mouth. "Thanks. You find yourself yet?"

"A while ago," Kuroko replies. "While you were on the phone."

"So, creative writing, huh? Congrats. Are you going to become the next Murakami Ryuu?" Taiga asks.

Kuroko gives him a level look. "If I've got to be a Murakami, I'd rather be Haruki, not Ryuu. Are you saying I'm too preachy?"

Taiga puts his hands up. "Hey, give me a break, I just used the first writer that came into my head. I've never read either of them. Reading puts me to sleep."

"Well, I like reading," Kuroko says. "Say, isn't that Aomine-kun over there?"

Taiga's stomach drops as he spots Aomine walking away from a nearby bulletin board, towering over everyone as usual. He's dressed in sweats and a hoodie and the ugliest sunglasses ever, yet somehow manages to draw every eye. He spots Taiga and begins to turn away with a scowl, and then Kuroko waves at him. Aomine's expression instantly flips to a grin, and he swaggers towards them.

"What are you losers doing here?" he asks as he approaches, slipping the sunglasses up to the top of his forehead.

"We came to ask if you want to join us in a threesome, what the hell do you _think_?" Taiga snaps, nodding at the student lists. He hates the way Aomine commands his attention. _I already chose Kuroko. Why can't you disappear? Why can't I stop thinking about you?_

Aomine's left eyebrow quirks upward. "I didn't know you two were a couple."

"We aren't," Kuroko says. "Kagami-kun's just teasing you."

"I knew that, dumbass," Aomine says, smirking. "I wanted to see Kagami's reaction, and you ruined it."

"I'm very sorry about that," Kuroko says, deadpan. "I'm surprised to see you here. I thought you were going to the same university as Momoi-san."

"As if," Aomine says. "The basketball club scouted me so I didn't even have to write any stupid exams. Plus they have an undergrad law department, and Satsuki's school doesn't."

 _Law?_ Taiga tries to imagine Aomine wearing a suit in a courtroom and succeeds a little too well as another bedtime fantasy is born, this one of Aomine stripping off a stylish lawyerly three-piece.

"But anyway," Aomine continues, "Besides all that, you told me you were applying here, and I want to play basketball with you again, Tetsu." He ruffles Kuroko's hair, and Taiga is torn between how adorable it is and wishing Aomine would keep his hands to himself.

"That would be very nice," Kuroko says, "If the basketball club will let me enter."

"Of course they will," Taiga and Aomine say together, then exchange glares of mutual loathing. Well, in Taiga's case it's less loathing and more why won't you love me back, but as long as Aomine thinks it's loathing, they'll be golden.

"Tetsu was mine first," Aomine says to Taiga. "So you'd better not think you'll have him all to yourself." Challenge glints in his dark eyes; Taiga's transfixed by it. He knows Aomine is talking about basketball, but it's all too easy for him to read too much into _Tetsu was mine_.

As he begins to fumble for an answer, his phone buzzes with a message. "It's from the landlord. We can go look at the apartment now, Kuroko."

"How cute -- you're moving in together and everything," Aomine says with a condescending smirk that Taiga memorises alongside all the other expressions he will mentally wipe off Aomine's face when they're good and alone in Taiga's imagination. _Shit, no! I'm supposed to stop doing that._

Kuroko shrugs. "It make sense, doesn't it? We'll have more time for club practice if we live closer. Even my mother agreed. We'll see you later, Aomine-kun."

"Yeah, later," Taiga says and turns to leave despite the protestations of his inner lovesick sixteen-year-old, who would happily take Aomine's abuse all day if it means he can keep staring at the dark hollow beneath his throat.

Aomine falls into step beside him. "How far is it?"

"Right by the station-- hey, who invited you?"

"I invited myself," Aomine says and smacks the back of Taiga's shoulder with a half-closed fist. "Relax, I just want to make sure Tetsu will be fine."

"Of course I'll be fine," Kuroko says, materialising between Taiga and Aomine. "I've stayed over at Kagami-kun's lots of times, and he never forgot to feed me."

 _And every one of those times I thought about making a move on you,_ Taiga thinks, gazing at the nape of Kuroko's neck and thinking about what kind of noise Kuroko would make if Taiga licked it. _If that's what Aomine's thinking about, he's right to worry._ He _has_ chosen Kuroko. Sooner or later he'll have to let Kuroko know, or their friendship will turn into a lie.

Taiga hangs back a little as they walk and glances at the faces of the passers-by, wondering what they see when they look at the three of them making their way down the tree-lined road to the campus exit. _Two tall people and a regular person, you idiot. Nobody cares about you except for you._

When he was sixteen, he sometimes imagined something a lot like this, only high school-sized: three guys together in a kind of romantic three-way. Something worthy of an old-timey school manga with subtle homoerotic overtones, set in a sleepy ocean town where the people are friendly and there's a weird festival involving babies, sumo wrestlers, mud-flinging, or giant penises. Or all of the above.

The three meet on the first day of classes, become fast friends, have to solve a school-wide crisis right off the bat, swear they'll always be together, exclude girls because women aren't allowed in subtly homoerotic stories, let petty jealousies consume them and go their separate ways for a whole month, then are reunited amid much high drama. And then, just before they're obviously about to have sex or at least attempt to, the artist splashes screen tone all over the page and writes some profound words in white boxes. Maybe even a haiku.

Taiga wears a rueful grin as he catches up to the other two. _This is why Kuroko's the one doing creative writing and not me._ Things like that only happened in fiction; he knew that when he was sixteen and he knows it even better now. Still, he has to fight the impulse to get between Aomine and Kuroko and put an arm around each one, imagining that for a second they would both turn to him and smile.

"It's just past the convenience store," he tells Kuroko as they emerge onto the pavement of a busy thoroughfare. "The station's across the street, and there's a Maji burger joint another two blocks south."

"You sound like a real estate salesperson, Kagami-kun."

"I do not!"

"Shut up, Kagami, Tetsu's a better judge of character than you are," Aomine says in his annoying there-that's-resolved voice.

"I can judge my own character better than anyone," Taiga objects, turning into the carport next to their apartment building. "And I don't wanna hear that from someone who sounds like a person who just invites himself to places."

"That's not even funny," Aomine says, rolling his eyes.

"Accurate, though," Kuroko remarks. "Is that fat man waving at us the landlord?"

"Yeah, that's Ueda-san, he's a former colleague of my old man's."

"Connections," Aomine says under his breath. Taiga gives him a scowl.

"Ah, Tai-kun, long time no see. I hope you've been well," says Ueda as they approach the entrance. "Are your father and mother well?"

"Good morning, yes, they are fine, thanks for asking," Taiga says, bowing. "These are my, uh, well, Kuroko's the roommate; he's the short one. The other guy's Aomine, he's from our basketball team." It's weird how easily that rolls off Taiga's tongue.

Kuroko and Aomine make their pleasantries, and Ueda takes the trio down several corridors to an elevator, chattering about how exciting it must be to be starting at university, reminiscing about his own student days, and complimenting Taiga on his height. Taiga has never understood why adults make such a big deal out of young people growing; it's not like he did anything special in order to become this tall. If anything the growth of young people is depressing as it mirrors the passage of time.

When they reach the fifth floor, Ueda hands Taiga a set of keys tagged 504 and presses the ground floor button again.

"Go on in and have a look around, boys; I've forgotten some of the paperwork in my car, so I'll be right back."

"Oh, Tai-kun, how tall and handsome you've become!" Aomine says in a falsetto the minute the apartment door closes behind them. "Is he for real?"

"Cut it out," Taiga snaps, irritated less at the disrespect towards Ueda and more at Aomine using his family nickname without permission.

"You're going to sign the lease today?" Kuroko asks, sitting down to unlace his shoes.

Taiga hangs his windbreaker up and hops on one foot while he pulls his second shoe off. "Yeah, I figured I'd save him a trip to the city. All the upfront shit's already paid anyway, so it's just formalities."

Aomine gives him a dark look. "Must be nice to have Mr Moneybags for a dad, huh, Kagami?"

Taiga shrugs, uncomfortable. "Wasn't always like that," he mumbles. "What's your problem, anyway?"

Aomine flashes him a predatory grin. "Gotcha."

"Fuck off," Taiga says, moving past him. The apartment is basically one long corridor from entrance hall to balcony, with a door to the kitchen that's connected to the living room on the left, and a bedroom and connected bathroom on the right. Less spacious than the Tokyo place, but more than enough room for two. If Alex shows up, she can sleep on the goddamned couch.

"One bedroom?" Aomine asks, peering inside the dark, empty room.

"We're guys," Kuroko says. "It's no big deal."

"Don't either of you jerk off? Or do you plan on doing that together?"

Taiga's grateful for the semi-darkness of the shuttered window blinds; just thinking about doing something like that together with Kuroko makes his face burn like that of a middle-schooler with his first crush.

"Don't be disgusting," he says as they head through the living room into the kitchen. "The bedroom's got fold-out screens in the closet. Not that it's any of your business."

"There's even a place for Nigou's food and water dishes," Kuroko says, pointing at an enclosure next to the fridge.

Taiga is still not sure about living with a dog, even if it's Nigou, but Kuroko's parents have refused to take care of the mutt while he's at university, so either Nigou moves with Kuroko or Kuroko stays at home and commutes to school. But if something stupid like a feeding enclosure is making Kuroko this happy, Taiga's pretty sure he would let even a velociraptor stay.

"I like it," Aomine declares, throwing his arm around Taiga's shoulders. "It's decided: I'll also live here with you peasants."

Kuroko gapes at him. Taiga is afraid to; turning his head would put them face to face. His back goes stiff as he fights not to lean into the half-embrace.

If he's honest with himself, he couldn't have dreamed of anything better, but he can't just agree on the spot. It would be out of character and maybe even betray his feelings, which is the last thing he wants. Aomine's arm is heavy and warm on his shoulder. _This puts paid to choosing Kuroko_. With both Kuroko and Aomine here, he'll have to go back to drowning his feelings in basketball.

"Don't worry, I'm housebroken," Aomine murmurs in Taiga's ear. The heat of Aomine's breath and the sound of his deep voice so near draw a shudder from deep within Taiga, so intense that he has to choke back a moan.

"Don't stand so close, you're giving me the hiccups," he says, moving away from Aomine.

"Oh good, if you hiccup one hundred times, you'll drop dead," Aomine says, trying to to grab Taiga's shirt and bring him back, but Taiga twists away. In an instant, it's as though they're on the court, gazes locked together, sizing each other up and executing attack after attack via Zone telepathy. Aomine's eyes glitter in the half-darkness, and Taiga's knees feel weak.

"That's a silly superstition, Aomine-kun," Kuroko puts in, slicing through the tension.

Taiga looks away. "You'll move in even if I refuse, so do as you like."

"Tetsu, have you been giving this guy tips about the care and feeding of Aomines?"

"There are certain things about you that even a complete idiot can see, Aomine-kun."

"Who's a complete idiot?" Taiga demands, getting in Kuroko's face.

"Oh, did I say something inaccurate? My apologies."

"No, you didn't, Tetsu; don't bully him, Kagami."

The doorbell rings: it must be Ueda with the paperwork.

Taiga sighs as he heads for the door. _I'd rather tame a goddamn velociraptor._

*

The cherry blossom front's moving faster than usual this year. The talking heads say it's in keeping with the weather, and the kooky oldsters from Taiga's neighbourhood association are gathering to protest global warming outside the police box by the train station. Taiga's going to miss those crazy old ladies a little, even if he prefers blossom viewing to worrying about the planet.

He never really got the spiritual part of this whole thing, but he looks forward to a lifetime of drinking parties just like this one. He tilts his head up to the sun and closes his eyes against its warm glare. The whole Seirin basketball team is here to see its departing members off. Of course they all think they're hilarious, so they've turned it into a mock wedding celebration for Taiga and Kuroko. They're the only two sticking together, as it turns out. Furihata's off to a trade school in Kyoto, Kawahara's going to study abroad, and Fukuda of all people got into Todai.

Six of the current team members are first-years who came to Seirin specifically to play basketball. It's still hard to believe that the underdog run-and-gun team Taiga joined three years ago has become a major force in high school basketball. Though even now, any school is yet to produce a monster like Aomine.

"I propose a toast!" Riko -- who is playing truant from her university classes to hang out with them and has already had too much to drink -- declares. "To Kagami-kun and Kuroko-kun, eternal health and prosperity in all the long years to come!"

"We're not even gay," Taiga tells her without much conviction -- nobody's listening, anyway, except Kuroko, who gives him a look of commiseration, then goes back to nursing the beer Fukuda forced on him earlier despite protests that they're all underage.

That Taiga and Kuroko are a couple has been a running joke since their first year. _I wish it were true._

Taiga shuts his eyes again and drowses, letting the chatter and laughter wash over him until he hears an unfamiliar female voice join the chorus along with an all-too-familiar silky baritone. _What the fuck is Aomine doing here?_

"What's the matter with Kagami -- can't take his alcohol?" Aomine's voice says, closer now.

Taiga turns towards him and flips him the bird. "I can drink anyone under the table, I just choose not to."

"He's reflecting on our forthcoming years of health and prosperity," Kuroko says solemnly. "How come you're here, Aomine-kun?"

"I was just taking Marie-chan back to her hotel," Aomine says, jerking his head towards a busty redhead foreigner, whom the knucklehead Seirin upperclassmen are serenading in broken English. "After that, who knows?" He makes a crude gesture out of the young woman's sight, and Taiga's very tempted to go -- well, crawl across the picnic tarp; he's too lazy to get up -- over there and advise her to find someone who's less of a lecherous creep. "Don't worry, I'll be on time tomorrow morning," Aomine adds.

"You had better," Kuroko says. "Don't think we'll wait for you."

"Oh yeah, that reminds me, Aomine," Taiga says, propping himself up on one elbow. "Keep your special friends out of the apartment."

Kuroko nods. "Yeah, please do that, Aomine-kun."

"That's why I decided to live with you idiots," Aomine says with a smirk. "I don't like the idea of taking people home; some of them might not want to leave in the morning."

"Yeah, tell me about it," Taiga drawls. "Look what happened when we let _you_ in."

"Kagami-kun just said something witty," Kuroko remarks with a hiccup.

Taiga punches him in the shoulder and lies back down, closing his eyes again. He still wants to go over to the Marie woman and tell her the facts of life about Aomine. His intentions are not even a little bit noble towards her. He's jealous; he's always been jealous of Aomine's rumoured carousing, but that was jealousy at a distance; he saw Aomine five, six times a year, tops. This is the first time he personally sees Aomine and his newest conquest, and it's driving him fucking bugshit. _I'm just going to stay here like this until he leaves._

Five minutes later, Aomine does just that, and it turns out that Kuroko's finished his beer in the meantime.

"Kagami-kun, do you think there's any more beer left?" he asks with an eye on the cooler.

"I thought you had moral objections," Taiga says, getting up to check. He fishes out a new can and passes it to Kuroko, who promptly opens it and starts drinking like it's water.

"I got over them," Kuroko mutters with an unreadable look.

"Famous last words," Taiga says, pulling out a can for himself.

By the time the party breaks up, it's already dark outside, and Kuroko is so drunk that he's actually giggling. Taiga says a small prayer of thanks to whatever deity that inspired him to make Kuroko move his two suitcases of stuff to Taiga's apartment that morning. If Kuroko showed up at home in this state, his mom would probably forbid him to leave for university until he turned twenty.

The two of them part from the rest with promises to keep in touch, amid way too many raunchy wedding-night jokes. Aomine and his pretty foreigner are a distant afterthought; all Taiga can think about is how much he wishes tonight really were his and Kuroko's wedding night.

"Kagami-kun," Kuroko says as they sit side by side in an empty train car on their way to Taiga's place, "Is it true that gay people can get married in America?"

"Not all of America," Taiga says. "In LA they can." Kuroko's shoulder presses up against his as the train decelerates.

Kuroko makes no move to pull away. "If I married you, would you wear a wedding dress or a suit?"

"Who would marry a drunkard like you?" Taiga says. His hands are sweating; Kuroko was supposed to be a giggly drunk, not a flirty one. He would scoot aside, but he's already right up against the glass screen next to the doors.

Kuroko giggles. "I'm not proposing, just making conversation. Does the question make you feel weird?"

"Of course it doesn't, stupid." _Of course it fucking does; who the hell asks shit like that while practically rubbing up against a man?_ " I'd wear a suit, obviously."

"Obviously because you're a guy?"

"No, obviously because I'd look ridiculous in a dress," Taiga says. "So would you. This is our stop."

He drags Kuroko into the convenience store by the station, buys some Ukon and makes him drink it. The last thing they're going to need tomorrow is become stars in the documentary _Kuroko Tetsuya's Very First Hangover_.

"Take the bed; I'll sleep on the couch," Taiga says when they get upstairs.

"No, I like your couch," Kuroko says, pulling his pants off. He folds them neatly and places them on top of one of his suitcases, removes his socks and folds those too, then pulls a little pouch out of a suitcase pocket and wobbles into the bathroom.

Taiga feels weird about going in to brush his teeth while Kuroko is splashing around in there. He's never had a problem sharing the bathroom with Kuroko in the past, so what's different tonight? That Kuroko's still drunk? The marriage-themed good-bye party? Kuroko's strange questions on the train?

_This is my last chance to choose Kuroko before Aomine joins the party. I could still do it._

Taiga's watching the weather report when Kuroko emerges, his eyes still out of focus and his balance a bit off. "Why aren't you going to bed, Kagami-kun?" Kuroko asks. "The movers will be here at five, won't they?"

"I was waiting for you to finish," Taiga says, clicking off the television.

"Sorry, I took too long," Kuroko says. He hasn't stopped looking at Taiga since returning from the shower.

"It's fine," Taiga grunts, looking aside. An errant waterdrop rests on Kuroko's bare left thigh, and he can't stop thinking about licking it off. "I got you some bedding." He gestures at the couch, where he's laid down a sheet, one of the pillows from his bed, and a patchwork blanket. "Only things I could find. Sorry."

"Thank you very much," Kuroko says. "You're really domestic, Kagami-kun." He strips off his shirt and folds it on top of the suitcase as well.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Taiga asks, keeping his eyes firmly on Kuroko's face.

"It's a compliment," Kuroko says, flopping onto the couch. "You're way more mature than I am."

"I don't want to be complimented by you," Taiga mutters, heart not in it. He can't focus on anything except Kuroko, practically naked on his couch. This is it: the last possible moment Taiga can still choose him. He whirls around and walks to the window, pretending to look for something outside. Composure is what he seeks, but he will not find it in a spring evening.

He's flustered: why? He's seen Kuroko buck-naked a thousand times. He's touched Kuroko in all sorts of awkward places a million times: during practice games and real ones, while they helped each other stretch -- basketball isn't a contact sport but a lot of physical contact happens between players anyway. _This isn't basketball, though. Basketball will save me from this._

He resolves to say good night, turns around and finds Kuroko under the blanket, still staring at him. The look in those eerie blue eyes feels as though Kuroko was just reading his mind, and Taiga shivers a bit.

"Kagami-kun, I want to tell you something, but it's a secret," Kuroko slurs. "Come closer."

Taiga wonders why Kuroko can't just say it; they're alone in the apartment. Still, in case Kuroko has a violent-drunk side to him, it's better to humour him, so Taiga kneels by the couch. Kuroko turns to face him, puts a hand on the back of Taiga's neck and draws him closer.

Instead of saying anything, Kuroko kisses the side of Taiga's mouth. Taiga sits frozen, unable to react because no version of reality in his mind is compatible with this; this is bedtime fantasy stuff, unreal, it can't be happening. Kuroko's eyes are dispassionate as he pulls back slightly, holding Taiga's gaze. He releases a breath, mint and alcohol, and draws Taiga's bottom lip into his mouth, teeth scraping wetly against delicate skin.

Taiga makes a startled noise. His heart remembers its job and starts frantically making up for the seconds during which it was stopped. Kuroko's eyes fall shut as he kisses Taiga full on the mouth, and this time his tongue flicks out, sleek and wet and very soft. It feels so good that Taiga's mouth opens in a gasp. Kuroko kisses him deeper, and Taiga gives in to him, closing his eyes and letting himself taste the minty alcohol on Kuroko's tongue.

The _noises_ Kuroko's mouth makes against his, their laboured breathing and tiny involuntary moans -- no bedtime fantasy of Taiga's has ever turned him on this much. _Is this happening?_

"This is making me really hot," Kuroko breathes between kisses. He pushes the blanket aside, grabs Taiga's limp, nerveless hand, and moves it down to his waist, below it. As strong as Kuroko is, Taiga's stronger, far less intoxicated, and suddenly aware that by 'hot' Kuroko doesn't mean the air temperature.

 _That would be rape._ Alex said that after smacking Tatsuya for talking about getting some girl in his class drunk so he could have sex with her. _If that girl will only sleep with you when she's drunk, that means she doesn't really want you, so don't be a disgusting creep._

Taiga gently frees his hand. "You'll regret this in the morning." His lips sting with fire as he pulls away.

"I won't," Kuroko murmurs, his half-lidded eyes intent on Taiga's face. "Take me to bed, Kagami-kun. There's more of you I want to taste."

"Good night, Kuroko," Taiga says, pulling the blanket back up over Kuroko's chest. He's pretty sure large parts of his sanity scatter in his wake as he turns the lights out and flees to the bathroom.

It takes him a long time to go to sleep. For all that cold showers shrink unwanted boners, they also chase away fatigue. He lies very still in his bed, staring up at the shadowy outline of the ceiling fan and wondering how the hell he's going to face Kuroko in the morning.


	2. Don't Act Like I'm on Your Side

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Featuring a gibbering lust monster, Vanishing Dirt, an intimidating snorefest of foundational classes, incorrect reasons for purchasing plastic food, a brief overview of Kuroko's player profile, a surfeit of drills, Aomine in the doghouse, the radical difference between crazy and crazy, Kagami's excellent wardrobe adventure, a minor construction project, a startling team line-up, and sage advice from the head coach.

-

After waking, Taiga is on his way to the bathroom when he bumps into Kuroko, already dressed.

"Good morning, Kagami-kun," Kuroko says and brandishes his little toiletry pouch. "I'm all done, so please go ahead."

Taiga nods without a sound, wondering how Kuroko can be so composed. His own insides have declared a mutiny: stomach flipping and guts churning and heart nearly popping out of his chest. Everything about Kuroko is sexy, even his bedhead. How has Taiga managed to spend two minutes in the same room with him until now without becoming a gibbering lust monster?

"What's wrong, Kagami-kun?" Kuroko asks, but before Taiga can answer, his eyes widen. "Don't tell me I did something strange last night. I can't seem to remember very much after that third beer."

 _Oh._ With an effort, Taiga shakes his head. "Nope," he manages. "You were just really drunk so I had to, uh, carry you most of the way."

"I'm sorry for the trouble." Kuroko looks down at his feet.

"Hey, no worries," Taiga says. "If I knew you were such a lightweight, I'd never have let you into the hard stuff."

He heads into the bathroom, careful not to slam the door, slides the lock into place, and turns to look at his rumpled face and bloodshot eyes in the mirror. _I think I handled that well enough._ Kuroko's powers of human observation are scientifically beyond compare, but he didn't _seem_ suspicious.

Sometime around the five hundred and fourth revolution of the ceiling fan last night, it occurred to Taiga that he could pretend not to remember what happened. He dismissed the thought outright; he's terrible at lying and even worse at lying to Kuroko, whose mind can absorb seventeen unrelated facts and spit out a correlation in the time it takes to blow and pop a gum bubble.

Only now he _has_ to pretend nothing happened, for Kuroko's sake if not for his own. Thirty minutes remain until Aomine and the movers arrive. It isn't time enough to rattle the foundations of a friendship, and after that time is up, there will be no opportunity for privacy.

He turns on the cold water and scrubs his face until it stings with shock. _I will have to forget it happened._ Would that his memory were as merciful as Kuroko's.

-

The movers have gone, and Taiga is in his new bedroom, folding shirts into the massive dresser's top shelf and sneaking looks at Kuroko, who's hanging clothes into the middle third of the wardrobe.

There is negative space around Taiga's mouth, shaped like Kuroko's lips.

"Why do you keep staring at me, Kagami-kun? Is there something on my face?"

Taiga averts his eyes quickly. "No," he says. "I keep thinking there is dirt on your nose but when I look again, it's gone. Must be Vanishing Dirt."

"You say strange things sometimes," Kuroko observes.

"You're one to talk," Taiga mutters.

"I think he was going for witty," Aomine says, sticking his head into the room. "You guys are too slow. I'm going to check out the weight room on campus."

"Wait, Aomine-kun," Kuroko says, sliding the wardrobe door shut. "I'm done, so I'll go with you."

"What about Nigou?" Taiga calls after him.

"My dad will bring him tomorrow. He said I could have today for settling in. Come find us later if you want."

"Sure," Taiga says, but the front door has already slammed; they are gone.

He has half a mind to leave everything unfinished and follow them, but that's stupid. He needs to stay away from Kuroko for the next little while, until the memory of last night's kiss fades. Right now it is so fresh that the aftertaste of Kuroko's warm mouth is his for the taking whenever he's not making himself think of other things.

The first sight of Aomine disabused him of any delusion that he would get over Aomine if he chose Kuroko. His feelings for Aomine remain, and his feelings for Kuroko haven't grown; they've just taken a sharp turn for the R-18.

_It's a good thing classes are about to start._

*

Taiga skips new student orientation. He can look up what he needs online, and he's in no mood for either small talk or awkward group activities. He naps on a sunlit bench outside his department's student affairs office until it's his turn for registration.

A harried faculty advisor makes him choose a track -- Taiga goes for manager training. His old man probably wants him to go for international business administration, but Taiga wants to stay in Japan. In the States, he's different no matter how well he tries to blend. He doesn't mind that, but he wants the option of not having to try.

He fills out paperwork for the laptop loaner while the advisor drones on about the foundational courses he has to take this year. It's a total snorefest: information processing, modern civilisation, basics of business administration, introductory economics. An _intimidating_ snorefest.

Aomine and Kuroko have gone off to their own departments long ago. A quick look at the campus map tells Taiga that he'll likely never see them outside basketball practice. He's glad; he needs time away from them, especially Kuroko. It's been four days since the kiss, but whenever Taiga's mind doesn't wander, it is full of the soft press of Kuroko's lips, the firm grip of Kuroko's hand on the back of his neck, the hesitant longing in Kuroko's eyes.

Taiga finds the sports club tables behind the archery dojo. Laden with textbooks, laptop, and an ominous sense of foreboding -- what _was_ he thinking, going to university? He's gonna die -- he writes his name, year, and faculty on the basketball club sign-up sheet. Kuroko's name is at the top of the first of four pages; he can't find Aomine on it. _Bastard probably won't even bother signing up. He'll just show up and expect to be a starting member right off._

"The first club meeting is in a week," the manager calls after him. "You can find the details online."

"Yeah, thanks," Taiga says, walking off -- he's already looked it up. It feels kind of nice being just a face in the crowd. Seirin's basketball success made both him and Kuroko kind of famous at school, and unlike Kuroko, Taiga has no talent for disappearing acts. He prefers the double-takes at his height to the double-takes at his face followed by whispers and pointed fingers. _No more love letters in my shoe locker, either. There aren't even any shoe lockers._

He did see a few names on the list that he vaguely recognised; people from Tokyo-area schools that Seirin faced in the past. They'll probably recognise him, but that stuff's easier to deal with when it's just ball players around -- at least they have something in common. Only one of the girls who sent Taiga love letters in high school actually cared about basketball.

 _I bet Aomine will have a mental breakdown when he gets here and people don't recognise him right off,_ he thinks uncharitably. Then it strikes him that he can't know that for sure.

He doesn't know all that much about Aomine -- not his favourite food, not the kind of music he listens to or video games he plays, not what he thinks of stuff like global warming and national suicide rates and the flagging Japanese economy. Taiga has absorbed such things about Kuroko by osmosis, but he only knows Aomine on the court.

 _Some guy once said that basketball doesn't build character, it reveals character._ Besides, what would Taiga do with Aomine trivia? _I'll leave that to his inevitable fan club._

-

One of the first things Taiga learns about Aomine is that he's kind of hopeless when it comes to some fundamental human survival strategies.

They have agreed that Taiga and Kuroko will split paying rent and utilities while Aomine takes care of food expenses. After the first week of classes, the food they bought together on moving day runs out, so Taiga hands Aomine a list of ingredients to last them another seven days.

Aomine returns suspiciously quickly, announcing, "I didn't know what half this stuff is supposed to look like, so I just got premade food instead."

The bag he's holding is not from any supermarket Taiga's ever heard of, and as he empties it onto the kitchen counter, Taiga feels the beginnings of a tension headache.

"This is plastic food," he says flatly. "The kind restaurants use for advertising."

"Oh," Aomine says, peering closer at the plate of what looks like fried tofu. "No wonder it was so expensive."

Taiga has never seen Aomine look abashed before. His eyelids lower and spots of deep crimson bloom high across his cheeks. Taiga has a brief but fevered vision of pressing his lips against the flushed skin, of being the reason Aomine is blushing. The familiar process of undressing Aomine with his mind begins, but Taiga clamps down on it and shoves the fake food back into the bag.

" _Aho_ mine," he mutters. "Let's go return these and then we'll hit the real supermarket. Kuroko, you come too."

"Yes, dad," Kuroko says with a dead-serious expression.

Aomine laughs uneasily and fluffs Kuroko's hair. Taiga wonders what those pale strands would feel like beneath _his_ fingertips. He wants another chance to kiss him, and this time he wouldn't be so startled that his hands are useless. He would stroke Kuroko's hair and let Kuroko guide his free hand wherever he wants it. Aomine would walk in on them like this, and Taiga would beckon him closer, closer, and Aomine's sharp eyes would begin to cloud with unreason as Taiga--

"Kagami-kun, you're in everyone's way," Kuroko says, lightly touching Taiga's elbow.

Taiga jumps as high as he ever has on the court, and a woman hurries past him with a suspicious backwards glance, through the doors and into the supermarket.

"Right," Taiga says, cursing himself for a daydreaming fool. "Where's that list I gave you?"

_It's a good thing there's basketball._

-

The basketball club is nothing like Taiga expected.

The team is huge. Seirin had about thirty people by the end of the third year; Tokai has at least five times that if you count the hopefuls. They gather in the stands like spectators, the existing team members clustering together, the freshmen obvious in their loneliness, many of them recognising both Aomine and Taiga as expected, most failing to notice Kuroko until he's pointed out as usual.

Taiga studies the upperclassmen, going over the team's rankings from the last season in his mind, and wonders if he'll even get to play in a regular match this year. None of the men are as tall as Aomine, though a few approach Taiga's height. Some of them are very adult-like; they give off an impression of seasoned pros, just like Tokyo Big Blue. Down in the centre circle, he counts four coaches, six managers, and another half dozen people whose jobs he can only guess at.

"What do you think they all do?" he asks Kuroko, who is also studying the staff group.

"Probably stuff like specialised training," Kuroko says with a shrug.

"I hope that hot babe on the left is a masseuse," Aomine says. "Pro teams have them, you know."

Taiga rolls his eyes. "Thanks for telling us stuff we know better than you, dumbass."

Aomine turns to him with a furious glare, but one of the coaches below blows a whistle, and the crowd hushes up. Aomine shoves an elbow into Taiga's side; Taiga wants to retaliate but the guy with the whistle is looking right at him, so he subsides. One thing is certain: this team will have none of Seirin's easy camaraderie. A club this huge must have discipline and order.

After roll call, head coach Tsunematsu announces that there are thirty open spots on the team, ten of which are already filled, then rattles off the ten's names. Taiga, Aomine, and Kuroko are on the list.

Taiga tugs on Kuroko's T-shirt sleeve. "You were recruited too?"

Kuroko shakes his head. "No, but the coach was there when I signed up and he recognised me."

"Why didn't you _say_ something about it?" Aomine demands, leaning over Taiga. His skin gives off a faint scent of cologne, and Taiga's heart stutters at the smell of sweet dark green sea. Aomine's neck is a breath away, his skin smooth brown _perfect_ \--

"You didn't ask," Kuroko says.

Aomine settles back with a snort and a rueful shake of his head.

Taiga blinks back the daze and remembers where he is and what just happened: Kuroko has made the team because a big time university basketball coach _knew what he looked like_. He's often marvelled at Kuroko's remarkable progress over their high school years. The weak-ass scrawny shrimp Taiga challenged and wiped the floor with three years ago, whose only strength was his lack of presence on the court, grew into a solid all-arounder with a dozen trick moves that no one else can match.

He's damn proud of Kuroko, for all the grief he gives him during practice. He glances sideways at Aomine and sees something similar reflected in his expression. It fills him with resentment. _You weren't even there to watch Kuroko grow, to push him, to believe in him. You just spent five minutes teaching him to shoot, so wipe that satisfaction off your face, you bastard._

Aomine seems unaware of Taiga's telepathic messaging; his focus is on the court.

The other fifty or so hopefuls have a dunking competition, which weeds out ten. The rest play five-man, five-minute skirmishes tournament-style. By this time, Taiga is half sorry he was recruited; sitting up here between Kuroko and Aomine is making him sweat for reasons unrelated to basketball. He'd rather be sweating from running around the court. The idea that all three of them are on the same team has sunk in.

That means changing rooms and showers. It means seeing Aomine naked for the first time ever and seeing Kuroko naked for the first time since they kissed. It means worrying about boners when he should be worrying about triple threats and shooting percentages. He's got half a boner now just from sitting between them. _Maybe I should stop thinking about them naked._

Taiga stares at the ball players jockeying below, bodies colliding in the paint where the fighting is fiercest, and wonders if maybe he should have thought this whole following Kuroko to university thing through a little more critically.

-

Tokai puts defense first; their strategy is to achieve a comfortable point difference in the first two quarters and then aggressively keep the opposing team from scoring in the second two. With Aomine and Taiga on the team, the coaches are assembling a new strategy that they're going to start implementing come pre-season.

In the meantime, the players drill -- in teams supervised by athletic trainers and individually with player development coaches. Taiga used to think Riko's training was ridiculous, but she clearly let them off easy. On the three days a week that he has practice, to drag himself home and fall asleep is the most he can manage; readings and homework and other school crap is impossible to contemplate.

He adjusts -- all three of them do -- and Taiga's fears about things becoming weird with Aomine and Kuroko never materialise. They are driven too hard to think about anything except running faster, jumping higher, getting more baskets. As the weeks pass, even Kuroko's drunken kisses fade from awareness; those sweet secret moments are ethereal as the remnants of burnt silk, an impossible dream.

Taiga watches Aomine get past three defenders and windmill a shot with so much raw force it's still a blur even when it hits the floor.

"Thinks he's Kadour Ziani, huh?"

Taiga glances at Fuda, a third-year point guard who's overly friendly with everyone, but says nothing. He understands the resentment towards Aomine; he feels it every time he watches the asshole on the court. Aomine is every breathless adjective reporters stick to him and more: unstoppable, godlike, ferocious. Still, he doesn't like anyone who isn't him badmouthing Aomine.

"Aomine is Aomine," he says, opting for diplomacy. "Don't worry, he'll stop coming to practice soon enough."

It's true -- as soon as Aomine determines that Taiga remains the only marginal threat to him, he stops practising and starts partying.

One late June evening he stumbles home while Taiga and Kuroko are up past their bedtime studying for midterms. They bought a library table for the living room to accommodate all three of them, but Aomine's never sat at it.

"Aomine-kun, I wish you would come to practice more," Kuroko says while Aomine sprawls out on the couch and begins to unbutton his shirt.

"Tokai's the strongest, and I've beaten them all," Aomine says. "I expected more of a challenge at this level."

Taiga tries not to watch the undone shirt fall away from Aomine's chest, fails. "I hope you like the bench, then," he says. "Tsunematsu said--"

"Screw what the coach said to the rest of you pawns. He's going to put me in the starting line-up and you know it."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that," Kuroko says, sliding a bookmark into _Modern Japanese Literature_ and rising. "By the way, you forgot to do the dishes again yesterday."

"I'll just walk the dog instead of you tonight, how's that?" Nigou, curled up in his doggy bed after greeting Aomine at the door, lifts a floppy ear.

"Kagami-kun and I have already taken Nigou for his walk," Kuroko says.

It was a nice walk, too; they talked about time travel and saw a cloud of fireflies.

Aomine sighs. "I'll take him tomorrow morning--"

"I hope you don't think that the two of us are going to keep picking up after you, Aomine-kun," Kuroko interrupts. Taiga hopes Aomine has the sense to back down; Kuroko never interrupts people unless he's seriously pissed off.

Aomine scowls at Kuroko. "I didn't mean to forget, okay? It won't happen again."

Kuroko walks off to the bedroom, and Aomine stares at his retreating back. "What's with him?" he asks, noticing Taiga watching him.

"Don't act like I'm on your side," Taiga says, glancing away. He was actually just admiring Aomine's profile and replaying bedtime fantasy number ninety-seven, in which both Taiga and Aomine follow an angry Kuroko into the bedroom to try and appease him, get stuck in the doorway, and--

He gives his head a firm shake. "I cook, Kuroko does a weekly clean and walks Nigou, you do the dishes, we all do our own laundry. It's fair and really not a challenge."

Aomine gets up from the sofa. "Whatever. When did you guys turn into a couple of old ladies?" Taiga watches him go, wishing he'd wear tighter trousers.

Aomine doesn't forget to do the dishes again.

-

After midterms, Kuroko and Aomine both go home for the summer break, but as much as Taiga missed living alone, he misses having them around even more. He thought living with them would desensitise him, but instead he's only sinking deeper.

He's given up on the hope that familiarity would breed contempt as advertised. Before they moved here, he had powerful, soul-deep crushes on Kuroko and Aomine. Now he's hopelessly in love with them. At least he's good at pretending he feels nothing of the sort, and he gets better at it every day.

He spends August going back and forth between the apartment and the campus training centre, and every night he's alarmed not to find Kuroko watching some badly acted mystery while reading a book at the same time, or Aomine sheepishly scrubbing an entire day's worth of dishes still in his party clothes. He can recall in perfect detail every time he pretended to doze on the couch and watched Kuroko eat a banana. He knows exactly when Aomine jerks off in the shower because Taiga's been timing him.

He can't wait for classes to start again, and that's a thought he hasn't had since elementary school.

When he was sixteen, Taiga was perfectly aware that normal people fall in love with one person at a time. He thought he was just confused, that his feelings for either Kuroko or Aomine would fade, leaving behind the sort of fondness he feels for Tatsuya. Now he's starting to believe that either he's not a normal person or there's a lot more to love than normal people think.

It's bad enough that one day he'll have to tell his parents that they shouldn't expect grandchildren because their only son has no interest in women. Even if his fondest wish is granted by some miracle and both Kuroko and Aomine agree to be with him -- not that he would ever ask, but wishes aren't dreams, you don't strive for them -- how the hell is he supposed to explain that? His folks are far from ultra-conservative but even the broadest minds have limits.

 _That girl in my civ class was telling me about the campus psychiatrist before the midterm. Maybe I should go see him._ But that's ridiculous. Taiga may be crazy about Kuroko and Aomine, but he isn't _crazy_. At least he doesn't think so.

He opens up his laptop and phrase-searches _I love two people_. He finds blog posts by women whose two-timing husbands claim to love them as much as the mistresses. He finds advice column submissions, the answer to which is inevitably "just search your feelings carefully and pick one person".

"Yeah, I tried that," Taiga mutters at yet another one of these. "Didn't work."

He never actually let Kuroko know he was picking him before Aomine waltzed into their strange new life. Maybe if he tried to commit to Kuroko, Aomine's hold over him _would_ vanish. If there were anything normal about how Taiga feels, at least someone somewhere would be talking about it, but he's already on the ninth page of results and all of it's screaming at him to make a choice.

"I'm home," Kuroko calls from the door, and Taiga slams the laptop shut reflexively, whirling around in shock. _Of all the times he could have decided to show up, why did it have to be right this minute?_

"Were you looking at pornography, Kagami-kun?" Kuroko asks as he walks in.

"N-no, why would I be doing that in the middle of the day?"

Kuroko moves to the fridge and pulls out a Pocari. "If you want pornography, you can just open the cardboard box under Aomine-kun's clothes inside the wardrobe. He's got lots. I'm sure he won't mind."

"Dumbass," Taiga says, reopening his laptop and calmly closing the browser windows he opened; Kuroko's too far to read what's on them but it's obviously not porn. Taiga's always thought porn was for people with no imagination. "What brings you by, anyway?"

"I forgot to bring some of my classics notes with me," Kuroko says, bending down to rummage through his bookshelf.

Taiga studies the shape his butt makes and wants to come up silently behind Kuroko, wait for him to straighten up, then turn him around and kiss him, take him by surprise the way Kuroko did to him. _If I make the choice now, today, then by the time Aomine comes back I might be over him._

The vision of the unexpected kiss is so potent that Taiga actually rises and crosses half the room to the bookshelf before Kuroko straightens, notebooks in hand. "Found them," he says. "Kagami-kun?"

Taiga freezes awkwardly in the infinite space between table and shelf, between the Internet's unforgiving answers and Kuroko's slender, real form. "Er, I was just going to help you look. But I guess there's no need, huh."

"I appreciate the thought," Kuroko says. His steady gaze pins Taiga to the spot. _This is it. I can tell him how I feel right now. I will. He's so damn beautiful._

As Taiga opens his mouth, a vision of Aomine intrudes into his thoughts: Touou's black home uniform, sweatdrops across his forehead, midnight eyes intent on Taiga's face, every muscle taut with anticipation, a wicked smirk on his thin lips, and a whisper: _you'll never win against me._

Kuroko breaks eye contact. "I've got to run; I have a meeting with my faculty advisor in twenty minutes," he says, slipping the notebooks into the bookbag strapped across his chest. "Sorry for intruding and I'll see you in a month."

"Yeah," Taiga says, defeated. "Later." _What's wrong with me? Damn it, why can't I choose?_

He walks to the balcony and watches Kuroko cross the playground below and head for the campus shortcut. When he can no longer see him through the trees ringing the property, Taiga goes back inside and retrieves Aomine's porn stash from the wardrobe. Most of it isn't even real porn, just gravure idol photobooks, though someone as pure as Kuroko would consider them pornographic. 

He finds a few American magazines where the women are actually naked, sometimes with their genitals on display. Taiga studies these with interest -- he's never actually seen a woman's private parts in such detail -- but it does nothing for him. Often there aren't even any faces in the pictures, just vulvae held open by slender fingers with clawlike nails.

 _Are body parts without the person supposed to be hot?_ Taiga doesn't get it. He feels a vague thrill when he finds a well-used formerly glossy mag with young men in it, and the idea of Aomine leafing through this while jerking off makes him so excited that Taiga puts it aside. With his luck, Kuroko will come back for another notebook or Aomine will decide to pay a surprise visit, and he'll never be able to explain himself.

Underneath a stack of idol magazines from three years ago rests a photo album. The cover cracks as Taiga opens it to a black-and-white headshot of a younger Kuroko, the one Taiga remembers from first year of high school. The one Taiga had no use for, then grew to respect, then fell in love with. Kuroko wears his usual ultra-serious expression of mild disapproval.

Taiga turns the page to purikura shots of Kuroko, then Aomine, then Kuroko and Aomine. In the very last shot, Aomine's holding Kuroko's face between his hands, their mouths close together, and Kuroko looks startled but unafraid.

A photo of Kuroko sleeping, his bare shoulder peeking out from underneath a pure white comforter. Same shot, but Kuroko's eyes are open and he's smiling vaguely at the person behind the camera. A shot of Kuroko on an outdoor court in a bright yellow practice jersey. Kuroko in his Teikou uniform, hanging off the rim by his hands. Kuroko in a bathtub, mildly irritated. A diagonal selfie of Kuroko and Aomine, faces pressed together, grinning up at the lens. Shirtless Kuroko, eyes hidden beneath his bangs, a tiny smile on his lips.

 _There's more of you I want to taste,_ Kuroko said to him on the night they kissed.

Taiga has suspected that Aomine and Kuroko had a past beyond basketball, but to have it confirmed makes Taiga feel like one of the wives in those blog posts he was reading earlier. _Someone as pure as Kuroko, huh._ Taiga flips through the rest of the album and finds more of the same: nothing explicit or even suggestive, but all of it meaningful. On the last page there is only a candid shot of Kuroko in his Seirin uniform, half-turned to Taiga in the background.

Did Kuroko suggest Aomine's stash knowing what Taiga would find? If so, what does it mean? Has he noticed Taiga's feelings? Is this a delicate way of telling Taiga to stay away from both of them?

Taiga carefully replaces everything, fits the lid back over the box, and slides the box where he got it. _I need a fucking intervention._

-

It takes three telephone conversations, two bottles of illegally purchased expensive cognac and an enormous box of Belgian chocolates to convince Ueda that a blacktop basketball court on the building's dilapidated playground is a good investment that will increase the rental value of the apartments.

Midway through September, two weeks before Tokai's second semester, construction finishes. The baskets are not at regulation height as Ueda wants the neighbourhood children to be able to play too -- which they do -- but at least now Taiga only has to go downstairs to practice whenever he wants instead of having to drag himself to campus during opening hours only. His shooting accuracy begins to improve.

Kuroko and Nigou are the first to come back during the third week of September. Taiga keeps meaning to bring up Aomine's photo album but can't find a pretext. In the imaginary conversations he's had with Kuroko about it, Kuroko is always the first one to ask if Taiga checked out Aomine's porn collection. The real Kuroko seems to have forgotten he was ever here during the break.

Nigou spends a lot of time trailing after Taiga and begging for belly rubs. Taiga understands the mutt's feelings: he keeps finding reasons to be in the same room as Kuroko and wishes he could be as honest as Nigou. Only it's not a belly rub he wants from Kuroko.

Aomine returns three days later, and Nigou starts mooning after him instead of Taiga, but Taiga can't switch his focus so quickly. Not seeing them and having the playground court at hand made it easier not to think about them, but now that they're back, Taiga's a mess. Kuroko's serene and deadly grace, Aomine's intense eyes and broad shoulders -- _fuck me, I do want them both. It's no good if it's not both. What am I going to do?_

One week before classes restart, the basketball club announces regular and starting members for the season. Of the three of them, only Kuroko makes the list, and even that spot is on the bench. The coaching staff has decided that the new offense-heavy strategy needed more refinement. Taiga's disappointed but unsurprised: it's rare that first-years are anything but benchwarmers.

Aomine is furious. Taiga watches his jaw tighten as the coach issues final instructions to the new starters; he fights the urge to put a hand on Aomine's arm to try and calm him down. _What a joke. If I touched him, he'd probably get even more riled up and yell at me not to pity him._ Just a year ago, he would have been pleased to see Aomine so frustrated, but Taiga's hopeless crush underwent an upgrade so major that seeing Aomine suffering is the opposite of pleasant.

After the meeting is over, Aomine shakes off Kuroko's attempts to stop him and stalks down the steps towards the head coach. Kuroko follows him sullenly. Taiga tags along, though he'd rather be half a world away.

"How may I assist you?" Tsunematsu asks, tucking his clipboard under his arm. He's practically half Aomine's height yet he doesn't look the least bit intimidated.

"Are you kidding? Why am I third string?" Aomine demands. His arms are at his sides, fists clenched.

Tsunematsu purses his lips, retrieves the clipboard again and flips to the middle of the sheaf of papers held there. "According to assistant coach Motoharu's records, you missed seventy-nine per cent of practices in the first semester. Nobody with that many absences gets first string consideration. This is clearly explained in your team handbook, which you're expected to read."

"Who cares about a handbook?" Aomine snaps. "I'm the best player in the region and you know it."

Tsunematsu adjusts his glasses and peers at Aomine as though inspecting a new molecule. "I spoke to your high school coach over the break regarding your behaviour -- frankly, I was very surprised he took no steps to root this nonsense out of you, given your potential. You are an immensely talented ball player, Aomine-kun, but your attitude will ruin your career."

Aomine frowns. "What attitude?"

"That a team is only as good as its best player. Basketball is a _team_ sport, and here at Tokai we have a team, not a motley band of brilliant players who somehow make it all work. If you think you can carry a match all by yourself, quite frankly I don't _want_ you on my team. I can't force you to leave, but if you can't adhere to Tokai's game philosophy, I suggest you quit." He looks at Taiga. "This isn't high school and I'm not here to wipe your noses, gentlemen."

Taiga recoils. _He_ hasn't missed a single practice. He tries to think of a polite way to tell this asshole of a coach to go fuck himself, but can't come up with anything in any Japanese form of address.

"I spoke too rashly, Kagami-kun," Tsunematsu says upon noticing Taiga's expression. " _You_ were kept off the roster because we really aren't ready to switch strategies to make good use of a strong power forward, and let's face it, your defensive capabilities need a lot of work. Kuroko-kun's misdirection can be used defensively to great effect, which is why we've kept him as an option."

"Him?" Taiga asks, bewildered. Kuroko's right here, isn't he? He looks around and realises that Aomine and Kuroko are gone. "When did they--"

"Aomine-kun took off before I was finished speaking to you," Tsunematsu says. "I didn't notice Kuroko-kun leaving. Was that all for today?"

"Yeah, thanks, uh, sir," Taiga says, bowing. "Please excuse me."

_Oh, this is really bad._


	3. How Do You Even Keep That Thing Upright?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Featuring memories of Los Angeles, parent-child communication, a two-on-one after dark, Kagami's failure as a manga character, the dangers of listening at doors, blurted confessions, a lesson in raising a pet dog, a matter of technical terminology, Kuroko's big surprise, linguistic confusion, the inferiority of fake strawberries, a statistical theory of human relationships, Aomine's very short nap, and the first compromise.

-

Taiga finds Aomine on the court outside their apartment building. He hears him before he can see him -- the rhythmic _thock... thock... thock_ of a basketball against hard ground, a sound Taiga will forever associate with Los Angeles streets, the relentless heat of midsummer asphalt baking right through the soles of his high-tops if he stands still long enough.

Aomine is mid-throw when Taiga emerges onto the court. He notices Taiga, still makes the shot, and runs to retrieve the ball as it bounces away towards the fence.

"How about a one on one?" Aomine asks, passing him the ball. "We haven't gone at it in a while."

Taiga catches the ball but doesn't move. "Are you going to quit the team?"

Aomine shrugs. "We'll see. Are you game or what?"

"Later," Taiga says, returning the ball. "It's my mom's birthday so I have to call her before I forget." _We'll see? Is he really that hung up on his lone-wolf play style? The coach was right; we aren't kids any more._

Upstairs, Kuroko's lying on the sofa with his legs slung over the back, leafing through a science fiction magazine. Nigou bounds up to greet Taiga, or maybe just to drool on his shorts; Taiga doesn't understand dog psychology.

"He's taking it pretty well," Taiga says, scratching Nigou behind the ears. "I thought he'd be stomping around the apartment yelling about being the best thing since fried tofu."

"You don't give Aomine-kun enough credit," Kuroko says, setting the magazine aside and looking straight at Taiga. His face looks really weird upside down. "He just likes to push people to their limit to find out where it is."

"What's your relationship with him, really?" Taiga asks before he can think. _Oh, shit._

Kuroko eases his legs off the back of the couch and sits up straight. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, uh. Remember how you said to have a look at his box of porn? He's got photos of you in it. A whole album." _What the hell am I doing?_ "They looked like private photos, so I only saw a couple." _I am also a fucking liar._

"He still has those," Kuroko says, no longer looking at Taiga. There's that tiny, secret smile that Taiga wishes would appear when Kuroko thinks about _him_.

"I'm sorry. It was none of my business," Taiga says, retreating to the bedroom to make the call to his mother and nearly tripping over Nigou, who gives him a sardonic sort of look.

-

When he comes back out, Kuroko's no longer on the couch. Relieved, Taiga goes out on the balcony.

He means to just check if Aomine's still there before joining him, but instead he is spellbound, watching Aomine score basket after basket. The sun has melted into dusk, and sometimes Aomine's dark-clad figure disappears in the shadows of the trees. Then the ball sails out of thin air and clears the basket every time. _He's so fucking good at this._

The automatic playground lights buzz into life, vanishing the shadows from the ground. Aomine dribbles out to the far end of the court, tenses and shoots across the blacktop. The ball rebounds and Aomine sprints for it, legs gleaming with sweat, gaze focused. He's a bullet, relentless and sure, and he jams the ball back into the basket with time to spare. _He's so fucking hot._ Taiga's mouth is dry, his heart rate's up, and he can't stop staring.

"You like watching Aomine-kun, don't you?"

"When the hell did you get here?" Taiga splutters at Kuroko, who's right beside him. It's been a while since this happened.

"I've been here the whole time. I like watching him, too."

Taiga watches Kuroko's pale blue eyes following Aomine and recognises the expression far too well. His heartbeat stutters. "Kuroko?"

"Yes?"

"Do you remember our high school graduation party?" He's panicking. He's totally panicking, because as much as he wants them both, he doesn't want to lose Kuroko to Aomine. _Why did I have to bring up those stupid photos?_

"How would I remember that? I got illegally drunk and passed out on your couch, Kagami-kun. Sorry again for the trouble."

"No, that's not how I meant it. I wanna tell you about something that happened--"

"Yo, shitheads! Come down here, let's have a two-on-one," Aomine calls, waving.

The conversation is immediately over, because what Aomine wants, Aomine gets; Taiga and Kuroko have endured far too many of his foul moods to deny him anything except a break from dish-washing. Taiga does it because no matter how much they fight, no matter that nothing he does will ever make Aomine smile, he's in love with Aomine. He's never been sure why Kuroko did it, but now he understands.

It's kind of killing him.

He and Kuroko lose badly to Aomine, and Taiga knows he can't go on like this. It's the first time his feelings have interfered with the game; he had no focus, no drive, just intense desire to stand in the middle of the court and shout _I love you both, you fucking bastards_ at the sky like some hackneyed manga character: tall, dark, and desperate.

He's not yet sure if he's going to follow Aomine and Kuroko into professional basketball after university or do what his old man expects and manage the family business in Japan, but either way, _nothing_ is allowed to come between Taiga and basketball. Not even these two.

He wishes he could be a person whose affections aren't equally split between two very different people. He wishes he didn't choose to live with these particular people. But he's a grown-ass man and he can take responsibility for ridding his life of childish fantasies. Those have a way of disappearing if they're not entertained or if a different outlet is found for them.

In other words, it's time for Taiga to find a real boyfriend.

-

The next day, Taiga awakens after a nice Sunday nap and gets up to grab a drink, but when he's about to step into the hallway, he sees Kuroko and Aomine in the living room. Aomine's embrace is practically lifting Kuroko off the floor, and they're obviously about to kiss.

Taiga ducks to his left, out of sight, presses his back to the wall and quietly inches towards the corner of the room so his shadow doesn't fall across the entryway. _Why the fuck did I tell Kuroko about the photo album?_

He's not even jealous. He expected to be, but all his bitterness is because he's not with them, not because they're together.

For all the years of secretly, pathetically wanting them both, until yesterday he never thought about what would happen if the two of them got together _without_ him. It never seemed relevant, not even after he found the album. Aomine slept with everything that moved, and Kuroko had Momoi, at least until she left for the Philippines last month. Whatever happened between the two of them in middle school _had_ to be in the past, or why would they bother with anyone but each other?

"What is it?" Aomine asks, his voice gruff. "Didn't you just tell me you wanted this?"

Taiga shrinks deeper into the corner and considers tiptoeing along the adjoining wall to return to the futon and feign sleep. But then he won't hear them clearly, and he really wants to, even if he's sure they're going to break his heart. Maybe because he wants it broken.

"I wasn't finished talking when you grabbed me. If you want to have this kind of relationship with me, you have to want to have it with Kagami-kun, too."

Taiga's heart begins to pound so heavily that he moves away from the wall so it doesn't reverberate. _Did Kuroko just say what I think he said?_

Aomine snorts laughter, and Taiga's stomach churns in anticipation of crushing disappointment.

"Are you kidding?" Aomine murmurs. "I've wanted him since I met him."

Taiga's pretty sure his jaw has hit the floor because he can't feel it.

"... surprising," Kuroko continues a sentence Taiga missed. "You went through the entire Interhigh star line-up in your third year, including the women's league. I know Kagami-kun wasn't one of them. I would have noticed."

"He's different."

"Like Momoi-san?"

"Like you."

They fall silent. Taiga hears whispers of cloth, soft wet noises, little moans. And _now_ he's jealous, maybe even jealous enough to walk out and put a fucking stop to it.

Nigou pads into the room and up to Taiga, wags his tail with a doggy grin, and barks a greeting.

"Traitor," Taiga mutters, sinking down to the floor in his corner and hiding his face in his hands for a moment, wishing he could disappear completely.

"Kagami-kun, listening at doors is a very bad habit," Kuroko says as he pokes his head through the doorway. Nigou barks again and trots over for a pat on the head.

"I wasn't intending to listen, you jerk," Taiga says, looking up at Kuroko. "I was going to the kitchen and accidentally saw you guys. How was I supposed to know what you were up to? What the hell _are_ you up to, anyway?"

Kuroko doesn't answer his question. Instead, he says, "It's a good thing you heard us; that makes everything easier. Aomine-kun is bad at talking about his feelings."

"Stop speaking for me, Tetsu, it's annoying. As if I have feelings for this asshole." Aomine steps around Kuroko and leans against the wall, glaring at Taiga, who is still on the floor.

"You talk big for someone who just admitted he's wanted me for years," Taiga snaps, glaring back as he rises.

"You must have a really shitty love life if you think wanting you means I have feelings for you," Aomine snarls. "Tetsu's the one I--"

"That won't do, Aomine-kun," Kuroko interrupts him, moving out from behind Aomine's back. "If you won't be honest, I don't think we should get involved like this."

"Fine! Then we won't. See if I give a fuck."

Aomine starts to walk away, but Taiga grabs his T-shirt and forces him around. "I've been in love with you since high school." He looks at Kuroko. "Both of you."

Before he can register Kuroko's reaction, Aomine slams Taiga's back against the wall and takes his free hand, lacing their fingers together. "Why," he breathes, his lips moving against the side of Taiga's face, "would you keep quiet about something like that, huh?"

Taiga doesn't know what to say, but Aomine seems to want no answer; his mouth is already on Taiga's mouth, and there's none of Kuroko's sweet patience here -- Aomine's tongue pushes and slides against Taiga's tongue; the sensation is electric, terrifying, berserk -- it's everything Taiga imagined. Taiga's grip on Aomine's shirt tightens until he thinks he might rip it, but he doesn't let go.

Aomine pulls back and looks at Taiga with the air of a small child admiring his very first drawing. He prises Taiga's hand away from his shirt and moves it down, presses Taiga's palm forcefully against his crotch and grinds against it.

"Doesn't take much, does it?" Taiga says with what he hopes is a condescending smirk worthy of Aomine himself, but his heart is racing at the feel of Aomine's hard dick beneath the thick fabric, and he wants to see about getting rid of the material.

"Like you're any different," Aomine says with a snort, glancing at the bulge in Taiga's shorts.

Kuroko steps between them, and Taiga's hand drops to his side, palm still full of Aomine's warmth. His other hand remains linked with Aomine's.

"Kagami-kun," Kuroko says, gazing up at Taiga, and Taiga bends his head to kiss him, finally, after months of agonising total recall, and it's every bit as amazing as he remembers. Kuroko puts his hands on Taiga's neck, pulling him down, his kisses deeper with every breath. Taiga drops Aomine's hand, puts both his arms around Kuroko, lifts him off the ground, and returns every kiss with the passion he didn't dare show him that drunken night.

He's vaguely aware of Aomine kissing the top of Kuroko's head, then Aomine gets behind Taiga, slides large warm hands under his shirt, tugs casually at the drawstring knot on his shorts, smooths the fabric down his thighs, presses both thumbs underneath his buttocks -- teasing, fleeting movements, relentless and unpredictable like Aomine himself.

Nigou barks happily, bouncing around their legs as if this is all a fun new game and he's the key player.

"Oh, that won't do at all," Kuroko says, extricating himself. He picks Nigou up and carries him into the hallway, sliding the door closed on an outraged series of barks.

"It's not a good idea to let your pets watch you having sex," Kuroko explains, removing his T-shirt.

"Sex?" Taiga blurts. "Right now?" Behind the door, Nigou gives a weepy little whimper as if he knows what sex is and is very sorry to be missing it.

"Why, do you wanna swap diaries for a few weeks to see if we're compatible?" Aomine asks, stripping off his own shirt and tossing it backwards. It lands on top of the dresser.

He whips Taiga around by his shoulders and lifts Taiga's hand to his bare chest. His heartbeat races through Taiga's fingers, a soft staccato. Taiga flushes, and Aomine grabs his ass, pulls him in, kisses him, moving against him in a slow grind that sets Taiga's guts ablaze. He then flips Taiga the other way around and presses up against his back, powerful arms locking across Taiga's chest.

Kuroko's in front of Taiga again -- when did he get there? -- and he places Taiga's hands on his shoulders and rises on his toes for a kiss, all tongue and no nonsense, slim fingers sliding down Taiga's forearms, trailing gooseflesh in their wake. Taiga's sure he's dreaming. Aomine's chest is snug against his back, his hands firm on Taiga's hips as he rocks forward. Aomine's erection against his buttocks makes Taiga gasp against Kuroko's mouth, and he squeezes Kuroko's shoulders reflexively.

"Aomine-kun," Kuroko says in a steely tone. "Control yourself."

To Taiga's astonishment, Aomine subsides; he reaches around Taiga's midsection to tug Kuroko closer until he's right up against Taiga. Kuroko's hair smells green apple-y, like that stuff he uses to tame it. Kuroko jerks Taiga's shirt up to his neck and lets Aomine take it from there while he presses open-mouthed kisses to Taiga's chest, pushing his belly out against Taiga's dick, rubbing against it, his hands curled softly against Taiga's sides, right up against his ribcage, just on the edge of a tickle.

Aomine tongues the side of Taiga's neck and Taiga tips his face towards him, meeting that smirking teasing mouth in an awkward sideways kiss that's just south of overstimulation. Taiga fights back a moan, and Aomine relents, but then Kuroko scrapes the skin beneath Taiga's left nipple with his teeth, and Taiga does moan, thrusting against Kuroko's belly, forgetting whose hands are where, eyes shutting, head falling back onto Aomine's shoulder, burying his fingers in Kuroko's hair and groping blindly with his other hand until he finds Aomine's hip and tries to pull him even closer.

Aomine mouths at Taiga's earlobe for another shock down his spine. "I want you in me." It's half a growl, deep in his chest, and Taiga shivers. _In? As in, inside his body? Aomine wants_ _me to--?_

"You-- you like that?" he asks lamely, not sure what the technical term is. "I thought you'd want to um, put it in." He cranes his neck to look at Aomine, whose mouth hovers close to Taiga's shoulder, not quite touching it.

"Why would I want to do the same thing with guys that I do with women? That's boring," Aomine says, and a slow smirk blossoms on his lips. "And if I didn't like it, I wouldn't do it. So how about it?"

Taiga nods weakly, and Aomine sinks his teeth into Taiga's skin, not deep enough to hurt but hard enough to make him whimper. Kuroko steps back and stares at the tent in Taiga's shorts. _Please don't touch it; I'll come if you touch it and that will be so embarrassing._

Kuroko touches it.

Taiga doesn't come, but it's a near thing.

"I think we'll have to do something about this first," Kuroko says, cupping his palm over the head of Taiga's cock, squeezing his foreskin over it right through the shorts. "Wow, I can feel how wet you are, even like this."

Taiga draws back with a sharp intake of breath. "Is the narration really necessary?" he mumbles.

"Piece of advice," Aomine whispers to him. "Don't contradict him when he's like this. He'll make you cry."

"Not today," Kuroko says distractedly, easing Taiga's shorts and boxers off, letting them drop to the floor.

Aomine leans over Taiga's shoulder to look down at him. "That's a nice colour on you," he says, squeezing Taiga's hips with both hands. Taiga's face burns; he's never felt this vulnerable. Aomine's cock is pressed up between his ass cheeks, hot even through his cargos, and Taiga rocks backwards into him, delighted as a tiny gasp flies from Aomine's lips.

"Oh, is that how you want it?" Aomine murmurs, regaining his composure and pushing harder.

Taiga's silent -- he _does_ want it, his every fantasy's been full of it, full of _Aomine_ fucking _him_ , but the idea of fucking Aomine has already found a comfortable place inside his lizard brain; he doesn't want to give it up. But he's never gone past heavy petting, plus that confused blow job at fifteen -- what if he's awful, what if he _hurts_ Aomine?

In the meantime, Kuroko has unbuttoned his own pants and folded them by the door, with his T-shirt. His boxers follow, and when he turns around, Taiga can only stare. It's not that Kuroko's big when erect -- he's about the same size as Taiga, but Taiga's height approaches two metres and Kuroko's, well, doesn't. _He was packing_ that _all along?_ "How do you even keep that thing upright?"

Kuroko flashes him one of those secret grins. "Aomine-kun," he says in a low voice.

Aomine's left hand slips forward on Taiga's hip, his fingers curl around the base of Taiga's cock, gripping him tightly between thumb and forefinger as the rest of his fingers trail down over Taiga's balls in soft, lazy strokes. Taiga clenches his jaw and sucks air through his nose, looking away: if he looks, he'll be lost.

Something sticky-wet brushes against his thigh, and then Kuroko presses close to him, his skin cool against Taiga's. His hand joins Aomine's on Taiga's dick, working the head while Aomine does the root, and Taiga would come but Kuroko's grip is too tight. Taiga remembers that he has arms -- which currently hang slack at his sides -- and forgets them again as Kuroko's tongue flicks against his left nipple. Taiga moans.

"Looks like you found something interesting, Tetsu," Aomine says over Taiga's shoulder and lifts his free hand to tweak his other nipple, brushing his thumb across it as hardens. Taiga's spine runs hot then cold as Kuroko comes back for another lick. Taiga tries to move, but Aomine's trapped him; he makes a noise eerily similar to Nigou's earlier whimper.

Kuroko's blue eyes meet his, and the bastard is _smiling_.

"Told you he'd make you cry," Aomine breathes.

Taiga doesn't have time to react; Kuroko drops easily to his knees, bats Aomine's hand away, and draws Taiga's dick into his mouth. It's half in before Taiga remembers that breathing is a thing required of him, and then his breath rushes out as Kuroko's tongue works over the head of his cock before he moves again, taking Taiga deeper this time, his lips tight and tongue now flat, now curling against the underside of Taiga's cock.

Taiga can't look away. The fierce look in Kuroko's eyes demands his full attention, and everything fades -- whatever neighbours might be listening, that this has changed everything, the room, the building, the campus beyond, the entire damn town. All that exists are Aomine's firm chest against his back and his steadying hands, and Kuroko's warm mouth and clever tongue and unrelenting eyes. Aomine's teeth graze Taiga's ear as he whispers, "Let go."

Taiga does, shuddering as he comes, pulse after pulse that seem endless for one magical instant. Aomine hooks his forearm around Taiga's neck, palms his cheek and kisses him as Taiga gasps wetly, knees buckling, legs trembling with the effort to remain upright as Kuroko's mouth coaxes the last of his pleasure out of him.

"You just made the hottest face," Aomine says, his voice a slow drip of honey through the chaos in Taiga's mind. "I want to be the one to make you show that face next time, so let's have you fuck me, after all."

Taiga swallows, exhales, and trips over his shorts towards the wall, where he sinks down with his back against the mercifully cool wallpaper. "Give me ten minutes, will you? Damn."

"Oi, Tetsu, you took such good care of this guy that he forgot how to speak Japanese."

Taiga looks up with a start. "Did I?"

Kuroko sits down next to him. "You spoke English just now. Is ten minutes all you need?"

Taiga stares into Kuroko's lap, at the head of Kuroko's cock peeking out from beneath his foreskin, wills his body to react, but it's useless. His thighs feel like soup; he doubts he can even _walk_. "I guess," he says. "Maybe fifteen."

"Make it five and I'll give you a blowjob too," Aomine says over his shoulder. He's gone over to the dresser and is rummaging in his drawer. "I knew it was here somewhere."

He saunters back to them and drops what he found next to Kuroko: a clear bottle of pink liquid -- or a pink bottle of clear liquid, Taiga can never tell the difference -- and a pack of condoms. _Let's have you fuck me._ Taiga's knees tremble though he's sitting down.

Aomine stands in front of them and undoes the top button on his pants, then the zipper.

"Oh, did you learn that trick with your hips?" Kuroko asks. "Where you shake them and your pants fall off?" Taiga looks at him, a little disbelieving -- his expression and tone are flat as usual, as if he isn't rocking a massive hard-on and didn't just bring Taiga off with that mouth.

"Idiot," Aomine says. "Like I'd actually learn something like that." He pushes the cargos down with his plain old hands and tosses them aside. His boxers follow; those land at the head of Taiga's futon.

Aomine's cock has a slight curve to it, so it makes a slight C shape outward from his belly. Taiga's groin tingles, but he can't be sure if it's new lust or afterglow. He _is_ sure that Aomine is even hotter than he imagined. Most people look kind of funny and a bit pathetic when they're naked, but not Aomine -- he's as arresting as on the court: masterful, graceful, beautiful.

Taiga glances at Kuroko, whose indifferent expression has morphed into a glaze-eyed stare.

"Aomine-kun," Kuroko says, beckoning, and before Taiga can blink, Aomine's on top of Kuroko, kneeling between his legs and pushing his knees farther apart. Kuroko puts a hand on top of Taiga's on the _tatami_ , squeezes it, and draws Aomine in with his other hand.

Watching them kiss gives Taiga a complicated, unnamable feeling. Eighty per cent of him relishes the sight of their mouths joined, at the way Aomine occasionally pulls back and has Kuroko suck the tip of his tongue. The other twenty per cent feels left out, sullen; it wants desperately to try and join them, though it's pretty much impossible for three people to share one kiss. _I'll never know until I try, right?_

Aomine licks Kuroko's neck, kisses a path down his chest, then scoots backwards a bit and dips his head down to Kuroko's dick, planting sloppy kisses on top of it then teasing the foreskin down with just his tongue. He's moved his hands down Kuroko's thighs, laying him open; one of Kuroko's knees is pressing up against Taiga's side.

Kuroko's breathing grows heavy, his eyelids droop, and his hand on top of Taiga's squeezes and lets go in a rhythm that matches the movements of Aomine's mouth. Taiga's throat dries and his heartbeat quickens; it hasn't even been ten minutes but he's stiffening -- his groin is vaguely achy in protest, not ready, but he can't help it.

He's fascinated by Aomine's every move: the way his tongue curls slick against Kuroko's cock, the way his shoulder muscles play beneath his skin, the way his ass rises every time his head lowers, the way his fingers dig into Kuroko's soft thighs. Aomine lifts his head to look at Taiga, and he wears the look of a big cat disturbed at feeding time; his eyes sharp, his mouth shining wetly as he licks his lips.

"That was quick," Aomine says, noticing where Taiga's hand is, and his voice turns growly again. "I think he wants some of this, Tetsu." He looks at Kuroko for confirmation and gets a tiny nod.

Again Aomine moves faster than Taiga can react; before he can protest that he isn't ready for anything major yet, Aomine's mouth is on his; Taiga tastes the sticky wetness on his tongue -- _Kuroko_ \-- and his cock grows harder. Aomine rubs the head between two fingers, and it's Taiga's turn to squeeze Kuroko's hand.

"Tetsu, make me ready," Aomine grunts, tearing his mouth away from Taiga's.

"Ready?" Taiga asks stupidly. _Oh. The lube and stuff._

Kuroko pauses in picking up the pink bottle. "Kagami-kun, you're a virgin, aren't you?"

"What's that got to do with anything, stupid? Of course I'm not," Taiga says, blushing. _Just because I've never done anal doesn't make me a virgin. Lots of guys never do that at all._

Kuroko crawls over and sits a little ways behind Aomine. "You're a terrible liar, Kagami-kun."

Aomine licks his lower lip and leers at Taiga. "That makes me even more excited for some reason."

"You just enjoy corrupting people," Kuroko remarks. "Get closer."

Aomine obediently moves backwards so his face is level with Taiga's dick, which has in the meantime achieved full lift-off. "Whose fault is that?"

"Yours, obviously," Taiga says. He's seen enough to understand who's in charge, but his loyalty to Kuroko is too strong to be swayed by evidence.

Aomine looks up from studying Taiga's cock up close. "Hey, you don't know anything about this guy. He--"

"Can it, Aomine-kun," Kuroko says sweetly, grabs Aomine's hips, tugs him up, spreads his ass and leans in. Taiga can't see clearly what he's doing, but he can guess from Aomine's contented moan as he buries his face in Taiga's crotch.

"Fuuuck, Tetsu," Aomine moans again, craning his neck to try and look.

Kuroko reemerges, picks up the lube and pours a generous dollop down Aomine's crack. He's half-smiling in that impish way again, and Taiga's actually a little intimidated. Then Aomine presses his lips to the side of Taiga's dick, distracting him.

"Ugh, Aomine-kun," Kuroko's voice is muffled. "This stuff tastes like fake strawberries."

Aomine and Taiga are engaged in a staring contest while Aomine does unspeakable things to him with his tongue, lips, and even teeth. "I'll buy you whatever flavour you want next time," Aomine breathes, pressing the tip of his tongue against Taiga's slit. "Just don't stop." He swallows Taiga's cock and that's the end of the staring contest; Taiga throws his head back as his hands seek purchase; if Aomine keeps this up, Kuroko might have to step in for Taiga on the fucking front.

As requested, Kuroko doesn't stop, and soon Aomine takes on a desperate, hunted, wild-eyed look; he's no longer playing with Taiga's dick, he's sucking it, sloppy and uneven, as though he can't focus. He bites into Taiga's thigh, sending a shiver through Taiga's whole body, blindly paws at the ground next to Taiga until he finds the condom packets.

He rips one open with his teeth. "Tetsu, no more." There's command in his voice now, urgency, and as he slides the condom onto Taiga's dick, he's got Zone eyes. _How the hell am I ever supposed to play seriously against him? I'll never be able to forget_ this.

Aomine kneels on either side of Taiga; Kuroko's hand pinches the condom ring at the base of Taiga's dick, steadying it while Aomine lowers himself onto it, watching Taiga's face greedily. The pressure and heat of him are unbelievable; it takes all of Taiga's willpower not to move, to let Aomine set his own pace -- he's no biology major but this _has_ to be painful. Then Aomine's all the way down, and Kuroko pushes Taiga's knees up to support Aomine as he leans back.

"Shit, it's been a while," Aomine says with a shaky laugh, wiping sweat from his face. He rises slightly, back sliding against Taiga's thighs, sinks down again for a thrust that's shallow but enough to make Taiga squeak. Aomine's supporting himself with his legs alone; his arms can't brace against the floor comfortably. _How do guys who aren't in top physical shape even do this kind of thing?_

Taiga holds out his forearms for Aomine to grab onto; Aomine accepts the left but guides the right towards his own cock. Taiga folds his fingers around the soft damp skin and squeezes, drawing a new kind of moan from Aomine's throat. Taiga stares at Aomine's powerful leg muscles working as he rises off Taiga's cock, a little higher this time, and back, and again, until they find a rhythm and Taiga's composure begins to crumble.

"Tetsu, come here," Aomine rasps, turning his head to the right. "I want your dick."

Kuroko's already there, using one hand to keep Aomine's head steady and the other to guide his cock into Aomine's mouth. Taiga's lower body quakes; he's not going to last this time, either -- it's too much at once, being ridden and watching Aomine suck Kuroko off in that same sloppy, messy way he was sucking Taiga earlier. The thin cord of muscle that rises on Aomine's neck, Kuroko's dark-flushed chest, the heavy warmth of Aomine's cock in Taiga's hand -- Taiga shuts his eyes but can't keep them closed; he wants to see everything.

His eyes meet Kuroko's but find glossy distance. Aomine's breaths are ragged; he's having trouble keeping Kuroko's cock in his mouth as he begins to lean forward so Taiga's hand puts more pressure on his cock.

"Kuroko," Taiga says, half the name swallowed in a gasp as he slides into Aomine again. "Let me do it."

Aomine's bracing hand tightens on Taiga's forearm as if in protest, but Kuroko steps over Taiga, facing him, and pushes his cock wordlessly against Taiga's lips. Taiga's got no hands free to steady it, no control, but he trusts Kuroko, and besides, he's only done this once before unless that one time with the banana counts, and it's better if Kuroko calls the shots. He opens as wide as he can, and Kuroko leans in slightly, supporting his weight on the wall with one forearm. He groans softly as he fucks Taiga's mouth with short, shallow thrusts, his movements growing jerky and frantic.

"Aomine-kun," Kuroko gasps. "Kagami-kun -- I'm -- I can't!" His cock pulses against Taiga's lips, and Taiga's mouth floods with bitterness.

Taiga loses it. His body goes rigid and he squeezes Aomine's cock hard as he comes with so much force that his ass arcs off the floor and drives him deeper into Aomine, who hisses and quickens his pace. Moments later, as Taiga's entire body is buzzing with the aftershock, Aomine gives a low moan and his come slips warm and viscid over Taiga's knuckles. He slides forward, off Taiga's dick, and throws his arms around Kuroko's waist to steady himself. Kuroko puts a hand on Aomine's forearm, and then his knees give and he eases himself down into Taiga's lap, rests his head on Taiga's chest. Taiga can't tell how long they stay like that, but he wishes they would forever, at least until his legs begin to fall asleep.

"You guys are heavy," he says into Kuroko's hair, gazing into the corner where less than an hour ago he sat listening to their kisses and feeling sorry for himself.

"Wimp," Aomine complains, rising on his knees and lifting himself upright. "I'm gonna have a nap."

Taiga watches him totter to Taiga's futon, thinks about complaining, but decides that making Aomine get his own futon out of the closet would be cruel. Bedding covered in bodily fluids is a small sacrifice for the best sex of Taiga's short life.

"Don't take it personally," Kuroko murmurs. With Aomine gone, the weight across Taiga's lap is negligible and his leg muscles are no longer stinging. "He always gets sleepy right after."

"It's okay," Taiga says. "I'm not twelve; he's not hurting my delicate feelings." _He always gets sleepy, huh?_ He wishes he had the courage to ask about their past.

Stretched out on Taiga's futon, Aomine grumbles something indistinct, and then he's asleep. Taiga gets up with some difficulty and goes into the bathroom to wash Aomine's come off his hand and lower belly.

When he comes back, he sits back down next to Kuroko, who looks up into Taiga's face and gives him that private, slow smile again. Taiga puts an arm around his neck and pulls him close, pressing Kuroko's sweaty cheek against his chest. He wants to say something, but can't think of anything good.

He meets Kuroko's eyes. "How long have you known? About me, I mean." It's so obvious to him now that Kuroko knew all along; he wonders how he didn't realise it sooner. Kuroko understands people; of course he would have noticed Taiga mooning after him.

"Since second year," Kuroko says. "I always wondered why you didn't say anything. I wanted you to." He peels his face away from Taiga's chest and relaxes against the wall with Taiga's arm supporting his neck.

"Why didn't _you_ say something?" Taiga asks, tilting his head to the side so he can see Kuroko.

"I wanted to but it never felt right. Then, at the graduation party--" Kuroko stops speaking abruptly and averts his eyes.

"Did you lie about not remembering anything after the graduation party?" Taiga has suspected this since their aborted conversation on the balcony last night.

Kuroko sighs. "I did."

"Why?" Taiga leans closer, reaches to tilt Kuroko's face toward him and gives him a slow kiss. "It was nice."

"I only did it because I was jealous of Aomine-kun," Kuroko says, flushing as he eases Taiga's hand away from his cheek. "I didn't realise how you felt about him until he followed us here back in March, and even then I wasn't sure. When he showed up at the party, I saw the face you made when you noticed his woman. I got angry. That's why I drank so much. I thought I was misreading you all along, that when you looked at me you just saw me as someone who can get you close to Aomine-kun. I didn't want Aomine-kun to have you."

"So why didn't you just-- I dunno. Steal me, I guess?" Taiga asks, peering at Aomine, who's snoring softly.

"Because I didn't want to make your decision for you. Besides, I'm not exactly indifferent to Aomine-kun, either."

"I don't think it's possible to be indifferent to him," Taiga observes.

"I guess what I'm trying to say is that I knew it had to be all three of us," Kuroko concludes.

"How can you say that with a completely straight face? Having feelings for more than one person, that's," -- Taiga searches for a concept and can only come up with something he learned in class -- "statistically insignificant! I mean, what are the chances?"

"In that case we're very lucky, aren't we?" Kuroko says.

"I'm not saying we aren't lucky. I'm just saying that it's not normal to be as calm about it as you are."

"I don't think it's statistically insignificant," Kuroko says. "I think many people fall for more than one person, then force themselves to choose because that's what we're supposed to do. If I was interested in doing only what I'm supposed to, with my body type I would've been better off as a train otaku, not a ball player. I think people being meant for each other in pairs is nonsense. Why can a person have ten friends he cares about equally, but not ten lovers he cares about equally?"

Taiga furrows his brow. "Well, friendship is different. Besides, everyone has a favourite friend."

"Who's yours?"

"You," Taiga says without hesitation. Kuroko points at the chain around his neck. "Well, and Tatsuya, I guess, but--"

"See what I mean?"

"I don't see, at all," Taiga protests. "I haven't even talked to Tatsuya in like a year. Last time I heard from him, he sent me a cat video."

"But if you and Himuro-kun met tomorrow, wouldn't you feel like you're talking to your favourite person?"

"I don't have those kinds of feelings for Tatsuya."

"Sure, but he's important enough for you to always wear that ring. So how can you say I'm your favourite friend? I gave you a wristband once, where is it?"

"I lost it," Taiga admits sullenly.

"Were you upset when you lost it?"

"Not really."

"Would you be upset if you lost--"

"Look, I get what you're trying to say, but the wristband wasn't a symbol of our friendship. You just gave it to me to try when I asked you why you wore them all the time. If you gave me something as a token, I'd wear it."

"All right," Kuroko says. "Tomorrow I'll buy you a Rilakkuma mask as a token of our friendship."

"Dumbass, I'd get kicked out of class for wearing something like that. Give me something that doesn't make me look like a lunatic. Anyway, the point is that the way I feel about your friendship and Tatsuya's is different."

"But it's still friendship. Sometimes you feel I'm your favourite, and sometimes, it's Himuro-kun, right? So you don't have one favourite. Your favourite changes depending on whatever goes through your head at the time."

"Yeah, but it's different. You're my friend, but I have, um. Feelings for you." He's not sure why it's making him flustered to talk about it after what they just did, but Taiga was never very good at this kind of thing.

"And you have the same feelings for Aomine-kun."

"Aomine isn't my friend," Taiga objects. "I never once thought of him as a friend."

Kuroko mumbles something that sound suspiciously like _Bakagami_. Taiga gives him a noogie. "And what was that you said about ten lovers?" he asks as Kuroko squirms away. "Is that how many you want?"

Kuroko's cheeks turn pink. "That was just an example. I am quite sure that two is my limit."

On the futon, Aomine grumbles, yawns, and props himself up on one elbow. "What are you jerks whispering about?"

"We were talking about our feelings, Aomine-kun," Kuroko says before Taiga can think of a lie.

Aomine sits up with a loud grunt and rubs the back of his neck. "I don't care as long as you keep me out of it. Next time, keep your voices even lower; I could've slept for an hour or two. Also, I'm starving," he adds and squares Taiga with a meaningful look. "Do your job and make me something."

"Attitude like that, there's only one thing I'll let you eat," Taiga says, glancing down at his crotch.

Aomine gives him an amused half-smirk. "Really, Kagami? You're giving me permission to chew on your dick?" He starts to crawl towards them, and Taiga's sorry he said anything, not because he's scared of retribution, but because Aomine's wincing slightly as he moves. _I hurt him. Shit._

"How about we go out for some food," Kuroko says. "I could use a milkshake."

[to be continued]


	4. Don't Say My Name Any More

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Featuring no lovey-dovey crap, a lament about peanut butter, an attack of the dango, a conversation about game strategy, New Year postcards, a fantasy of watching the sunrise, Nigou's bath, Aomine's slow evolution, a late essay, unusual CPR, a new array of study subjects, an improbably cold late April, kind of a steady thing, Kuroko's poetry assignment, a lesson in kanji readings, a critique of root beer, a lunch invitation, a ruined afternoon at the shopping arcade, Kagami's downward spiral, and the very long way home.

-

Taiga wakes to his phone alarm buzzing under his pillow. He's halfway to the bathroom before yesterday's events reassert themselves in memory.

He freezes in mid-step, glances around his shoulder. Aomine's stretched out on his futon by the window, and Kuroko's buried under his bedding in the middle of the room. Last night, they went to the Maji Burger down the street, talked about everything except what happened, came home. By the time Taiga came out of the shower, Aomine was asleep and Kuroko was out walking Nigou. Taking this as a sign Kuroko didn't want company -- he usually asked if Taiga wanted to walk with them -- Taiga went to bed. _And here we are._

He continues into the bathroom and shuts the door. Three years of bedtime fantasies and it never occurred to him that even if the three of them did start having sex, they'd have to continue living normal lives -- morning boners, pissing, brushing teeth, clean underwear, clothes, meals, classes, basketball practice, showers, video games, festivals, exams, training camps. Life. In retrospect, the relationship with Aomine and Kuroko in Taiga's head could only be real in some remote asylum for incorrigible nymphomaniacs. Fuck, he's not even sure if last night won't be the only time. And he doesn't just want sex, though Aomine has hinted clearly that's how he wants it.

_It happened when Kuroko leaned sideways against Aomine after they sat down at the table with their food._

_"Hey, no lovey-dovey crap, okay?" he said. Kuroko's face fell, and Taiga lost his appetite._

_"Not in public?" Kuroko murmured, hand tightening on his vanilla milkshake cup._

_"Just don't," Aomine said, glaring out the window. "Think it's gonna rain?"_

_As they walked back, Taiga tried to take Kuroko's hand, but Kuroko shook him off, though he did smile._

The doorknob rattles, and Taiga's staring at Aomine's groggy face in the mirror.

"Morning," Aomine says.

Taiga nods at him, spits out the toothpaste, rinses his mouth. _What should I do?_

Aomine sidles up to him, slings an arm around his shoulders, draws him in for a lazy, sloppy kiss.

"You taste like a toilet," Taiga remarks, pulling away.

Aomine breathes a shaky laugh. "Didn't know you went around licking toilets."

"I'm gonna start breakfast," Taiga says, escaping to the kitchen. His dick has zero misgivings about Aomine being a total jerk to Kuroko, and Taiga's not sure how he feels about that.

He decides on scrambled eggs and gets busy at the stove. What he wouldn't give for an honest-to-goodness peanut butter and jelly sandwich, though -- the Japanese peanut butter spreads just don't taste the same, and he still hasn't found an import store nearby. Plus, the others would probably vote him out of the apartment for eating something like that.

Aomine walks in, sniffs the air, saunters up behind Taiga and loops his arms around his torso. "What's with the cold shoulder?"

"You hurt Kuroko's feelings."

"What, because I don't want to cuddle? Come off it; Tetsu knows me well enough not to care."

"You didn't see his face."

"Don't be like that." Aomine kisses his neck, reaches down to fondle his dick through his jeans; his other hand comes up to Taiga's face, fingers smelling of soap, warm against his lips. Taiga kisses them; he can't help himself -- Aomine's closeness fries all of his mental circuits responsible for good and wholesome life decisions. He draws Aomine's middle finger into his mouth, tongues it, bites it gently, shivers at Aomine's hiss against his neck.

"Kiss me," Aomine demands, tugging at his belt. Taiga drops the spatula and turns to obey.

"Aomine-kun, you'll cause our breakfast to burn," Kuroko says, opening the refrigerator door to get the milk. _Sometimes I'm sure he uses alternate dimensions to travel between points A and B._

"Fuck breakfast, Tetsu, come over here," Aomine growls.

"We'll be late for class, so no."

The rice cooker beeps.

They eat breakfast.

-

It doesn't get easier. At least, not right away. Taiga walks around with his head half in a sexually explicit daydream -- he's usually able to snap out of it by lunchtime, but he still keeps thinking about what's going to happen when he gets home. Neither Aomine nor Kuroko have any shame when it comes to sex, and they work very hard at divesting Taiga of all embarrassment.

He can focus at practice, at least -- his failure on the blacktop was probably because they were alone; the presence of the rest of the team curbs his response to Aomine's and Kuroko's physical presence. Now that he knows that whatever it is they're doing is at least partially mutual, his mind no longer gets trapped in it.

Besides, Aomine's started working with a new player development coach, which keeps him out of the regular drills. He refuses to talk about it until well into November.

The three of them are eating dango at the School Foundation Festival when Aomine pokes Taiga in the shoulder with the blunt end of a skewer and says, "You guys are supposed to help me with my play style."

Kuroko's eyebrow twitches. "Supposed to?"

"Kaneda said I should ask you," Aomine amends, picking up another skewer.

"If you want to learn the foundations of team play quickly, try game strategy," Taiga says. "That's what Alex always said."

"I like it," Kuroko says. "But you can't create a game plan without two teams."

"We could see if the coach will let us put together a couple of teams from the second and third strings," Taiga suggests. "Mix up the drills some."

"Forget it, they all think I'm an asshole," Aomine says.

"You _are_ an asshole," Taiga says with a smirk, earning a fist to the ribs. "Besides, you wouldn't be playing."

Aomine cocks his head to the side. "If I'm not playing, what's the point?"

"Psychology," Kuroko says, tapping Aomine's forehead with a finger. "Strategy is a lot like playing, only the game's in your head. If you think about it, the strategist is the most important player, because in a way he controls what all the players do."

Taiga has objections to this philosophy, but Aomine likes being the most important player, so that's what they go with.

-

Taiga stands at the window, watching snow drift on wind currents. It's not cold enough to settle, but it's wet enough to make the blacktop court unusable. "I hope this doesn't stick around," he says, turning away from the dreary grey blur. "I don't wanna have to go on campus while you guys are gone."

Next to him, Nigou thumps the floor with his tail, as if to remind Taiga that at least he'll have dog company this time around.

Kuroko's at the study table, writing New Year's postcards. Taiga thought about sending some, but his penmanship's crap. He'll just send e-mails as always.

"Ten full days that we could be alone," Aomine says from the couch. "What a waste."

"Aomine-kun, your mother must be crying right now," Kuroko remarks, placing another postcard in the done pile.

"Yeah, what kind of a son are you?" Taiga asks, plopping down on the couch and making Aomine's feet bounce off the cushion. He thought about going to LA, but his folks are busy: America doesn't shut down for New Year's. Taiga would miss a regular practice if he goes at Christmas.

"Don't even give me that," Aomine grouses. "I'm going, aren't I? All we do is watch TV anyway; I'm just saying I could do that here."

"My mom wants to drive out to watch the sunrise this year," Kuroko says. "That will be nice."

Taiga leans his head back against the couch back, lets Aomine stick his feet under his thigh, closes his eyes and daydreams about the three of them going to the sea to watch the year's first sun greet the day. He's been having so much sex that bedtime fantasies have morphed into family-friendly daytime ones, all starring Aomine and Kuroko. It's pretty embarrassing; he's never considered himself a romantic type.

Aomine comes back on January second. They race German cars around South American tracks for three hours, eat leftover curry, talk very little. Taiga takes Nigou out for a walk along the rain-drenched riverbank and thinks about how strange it is to be alone with Aomine. He thought that he would feel less drawn to Aomine without Kuroko there, but that's not the case. Yet he feels it would be a betrayal if he tried to do anything in Kuroko's absence, even if it's just a kiss. He shepherds Nigou home, winces as the dog shakes his fur out all over their shoes.

"Tetsu just mailed me, said he's on his way back," Aomine calls over the sounds of the newscast.

"That's good," Taiga says, hauling the dog into the bathtub to wash his filthy paws.

Aomine joins him, though not to help with Nigou; Taiga's ass, high in the air as he bends over the tub, is his target. Both hands, firm and strong. Taiga says a prayer for strength from above.

"I keep thinking about fucking you," Aomine confides. "The way you and Tetsu fuck me, I mean."

"Is that so?" Taiga mumbles. Nigou keeps trying to play with his soapy hands and making an awful mess.

"I think maybe it's time to stop thinking and start doing," Aomine says, leaning on top of him, covering Taiga with his body. Nigou wags his tail, spraying water everywhere.

"I thought you said it was boring," Taiga says, lifting Nigou's hind paw and rinsing it under the bath faucet.

"Yeah, well, maybe I was wrong about that," Aomine says, and his voice in Taiga's ear is as hypnotising as it's ever been.

Taiga rinses Nigou's last paw, swipes a hand across his fuzzy belly. "You plan on doing it right here while I wash the dog?"

Aomine backs off and readies Nigou's towel as Taiga lifts him out. "I'll do it any way you let me," he says.

Taiga hands him Nigou. "Dry the beast. You can fuck me any time you want."

When Kuroko arrives an hour later, they're on the couch, playing video games.

-

At the end of January, Tokai loses miserably to Kansai U and is out of the tournament for the season. Not even Kuroko, called to court in the last quarter, can do much about it: his Ignite passes earn them sixteen points, but that just means they lose with a forty-point difference. Taiga has never experienced watching from the sidelines for an entire game while his team got creamed. He spends so much of the time clenching his fists that his hands hurt by the end of it.

"Fucking Akashi." That's all Aomine says about it.

The second- and third-stringers have played several dozen practice games under Aomine's supervision by now, and he's developing a real understanding of team play, though he's yet to prove it on the court. For all that Coach Tsunematsu criticises Aomine's attitude, he seems pleased -- and a lot fewer of their teammates think Aomine's an irredeemable jerk. Even Taiga's coming around on that one.

Then finals are upon them -- a week of sleepless nights and no sex, which turns Aomine into a grouchy bear, Kuroko into a vicious tanuki, and Taiga into a zombie. Taiga thinks they'll be catching up on sex for hours when it's over, but after his last final he drags himself home and sleeps for sixteen hours.

Aomine and Kuroko aren't going back to Tokyo for the semester break; their time in the tournament might be over but regular team selection will still happen this year, and they all want to start next season.

Taiga rubs his eyes, checks his phone: noon. Talk about catching up on sleep. He brushes his teeth, contemplates a shower. Now that finals are over, he feels kind of lost -- having only basketball to focus on feels like a dream. _Maybe I should concentrate on going pro. I'll still graduate, mom and dad will like that, but it's my life, right?_

"Kagami-kun."

Taiga takes a flying leap and bumps his hip on the sink. "Quit doing that!"

Kuroko gives him a look eerily similar to Nigou's best food-begging technique. "Aomine-kun has a late essay to finish and he won't play with me."

Taiga opens his arms. "I'll play with you, so come here." _Wait, they were doing stuff without me?_ The thought isn't appalling, which throws him.

"You look troubled," Kuroko says, stepping up to Taiga and linking his arms behind his back.

"Surprised," Taiga says. "I thought I'd be pissed that you were being sexy without me."

Kuroko tilts his face up. "You aren't? It's just you were sleeping and I was really horny."

Taiga shakes his head. "I don't care. Weird, right?"

"I don't think so," Kuroko says. "It doesn't bother me either. If it's the two of you, I mean."

"What about Aomine?"

Kuroko tugs Taiga out of the bathroom and towards Taiga's futon. "We'll have to ask him after he finishes his dumb essay."

-

"Whose idea was this again?" Taiga asks, wincing as Kuroko slams into him.

Kuroko gives him a glazed, vacant look. "Yours, Kagami-kun. Want to stop?"

"Nah," Taiga says, patting his back. Getting fucked doesn't feel as special as Aomine makes it out to be, though watching Kuroko dissolve into incoherence by Taiga's will alone more than makes up for it. _Mostly though, my ass just hurts._

Taiga raises his legs higher and notices movement out of the corner of his eye. Aomine's leaning against the closed bedroom door, which was open when they started.

Kuroko cries out, buries his face in the space between Taiga's neck and shoulder, and comes. "Sorry," he mumbles, after. "I got a little too excited when I saw Aomine-kun watching us."

"What about your paper?" Taiga asks Aomine. _Because obviously that's the most important thing right now -- am I an idiot?_

"Who the hell can concentrate on a paper with all the noise you're making?" Aomine says, undoing the buttons on his jeans as he approaches them. Kuroko has flopped off to the side, next to Taiga, and is tying a knot at the top of the used condom.

"I didn't manage to make Kagami-kun come," Kuroko informs Aomine.

Taiga cuffs him lightly on the top of his head. "You sound like an apprentice."

Aomine snorts, settling between Taiga's legs. "This guy has some pretty deep misunderstanding about which one of us is the apprentice, Tetsu."

Aomine doesn't manage to make him come, either -- at least not until after he gets out of Taiga and double-teams with Kuroko to perform CPR on Taiga's dick. But if either of them wanted to do it again, Taiga wouldn't say no.

-

Halfway through the term break, Kuroko starts laying his futon out next to Taiga's, and more often than not, Taiga wakes with Kuroko in his arms. One morning, Taiga notices Aomine staring at them from the bathroom doorway. He pats the space next to him, but Aomine shakes his head.

"I told you, I don't like that kind of stuff," he says, looking away.

"Suit yourself," Taiga says, rolling closer to Kuroko and shutting his eyes again. He's not sure what bothers him. _Maybe the fact that if Kuroko were to invite him, he would come._ Taiga doesn't know where he stands with Aomine. He tries not to think about it. Trying to ask Aomine about it would only cause an argument, and Taiga _hates it_ when the three of them argue about anything; it always feels like all the sun's gone out of his life.

April brings a new year and an expanded array of course choices. Taiga takes basketball for a phys ed credit and English as an elective -- never an easier decision. The rest is microeconomics, macroeconomics, statistics, and other subjects whose end goals he only vaguely understands. He's really got no head for this stuff, but passing has turned out easier than he thought. The exams he expected to fail, he passed -- there must be an insane grading curve.

One Saturday, Taiga wakes to a large muscular arm resting on top of his shoulder. He's never noticed the eighteen-dotted BCG scar on Aomine's deltoid before. Kuroko stirs against Taiga's chest, and Aomine's eyes open. He and Taiga stare at each other for a long moment, and then Aomine turns aside.

"It's warmer like this," he mumbles into the pillow.

"It's the end of April," Kuroko says, turning to lie on his back between them.

"Shut up," Aomine says. "I was cold."

Two weeks later, they buy a bed that takes up half the bedroom.

Nigou is very cross that he's not allowed on it like he is on the couch.

-

Near the end of May, Taiga's in the law library looking helplessly through stacks of books on corporate governance reform when he hears Aomine's voice.

"...been a while. What have you been up to?"

"This and that, you know, working a lot. My dad got downsized." A girl's voice. "You haven't called in forever, are you trying to graduate early or something?"

"Like hell I am."

"It's just as I thought -- I was no good in bed, right?"

"It's not that," Aomine says. "I've just kind of got a steady thing going now."

"Who's the lucky girl?"

"No one you know."

The girl laughs softly. "Must be a very special person, to tame Aomine-kun."

"Yeah, something like that."

Taiga's eyes find the book he was looking for and he steals away, feeling vaguely guilty but extremely happy.

Later that week, he's digging through the pen collection on his bookshelf to find a working one when he notices a couple of papers coming loose from a folder on Kuroko's shelf.

_Creative Poetry Assignment_  
 _Kuroko Tetsuya, Group C_

Curious, Taiga pulls the stapled pages out. Kuroko doesn't talk about his classes much, and Taiga's always wondered what kinds of things creative writing majors do. The poem is only a few lines, printed neatly in the middle of the page.

_Tempest_

_I am a pond_  
 _serene and calm_  
 _a calm that even lilies scorn_

_They're surging waves_  
 _in battle, rage_  
 _together they ignite my soul_

_One a typhoon_  
 _the other, storm_  
 _with them I am the sea._

The grade is 90. The professor's comments:

_A fresh take on marital problems from the grown-up child's point of view. You've captured the vaguely incestuous nature of the parent-child relationship without resorting to base crudity; a truly excellent effort, though I encourage you to incorporate more modern elements instead of relying on nature imagery alone._

Taiga's face feels hot as he replaces the assignment in the blue plastic folder. _Parents' marital problems? Incest? Professors are so weird._ _He_ understands the poem; he even knows which one is the storm and which one the typhoon.

-

At the start of the rainy season, Kuroko asks Taiga to call him the way Aomine does, _Tetsu_.

"Only if you use my first name too," Taiga says. "I know it's a thing here but in America everybody uses first names, so I'd feel weird if I used your first name and you kept calling me by my last name. It's, I dunno. Unequal."

Kuroko taps the side of his face with his pen. "May I call you Tai-kun, then?"

"Why a honorific?"

Kuroko writes on a scrap piece of paper, shows it to Taiga: the first kanji of his given name and the kanji for -kun.

"The kanji for -kun is the same one as the kanji for the casual "you", but it also has an older meaning: "master". Because of the contradiction, I really like it. It makes a good shape in my mind. It kind of fits my feelings."

"I don't really understand," Taiga says. Since sneaking that look at Kuroko's writing, he's developed a new appreciation for the depth of Kuroko's analysis of just about anything. "But that's what family calls me so of course you can use it. Uh. Tetsu."

When Aomine gets home an hour later, he immediately demands that if Tetsu's going to use Taiga's first name, he has to do the same with Aomine's.

"You should've been using it to begin with," he says. "How many times have I told you to?"

Tetsu looks at the paper where he'd written for Taiga before. "It looks the same," he says with childlike delight. "Dai-kun and Tai-kun look the same."

Taiga and Aomine exchange looks. "No we don't," Taiga says.

"I mean in written form," Tetsu says. "But I won't use either of them unless you two use first names with each other."

"Why?" Aomine demands. "It's not like me and this guy have known each other that long."

Taiga rolls his eyes. "You let me stick my dick up your ass but won't let me use your first name? Only in Japan."

"I don't wanna hear that from some Americanised Japanese," Aomine snaps. "You drink _root beer_. Voluntarily."

"If you ever get to play for the NBA, everybody will use your first name," Tetsu says. "Think of it as practice."

-

A few days later, Taiga's on his way to grab something to eat at the central cafeteria before his microeconomics lecture. The weather is dreadful, so he'll have to eat indoors again.

"Psst."

He turns around and sees Daiki beckoning to him from behind a column on the covered walkway that connects the two neighbouring lecture hall buildings.

"What are you doing here?" Taiga asks, walking over to him across the wet grass.

"I was on my way back from lunch and saw you," Daiki says. "Come here."

"What do you think I'm doing, stupid?" Taiga mutters, irritated, and then he's being dragged behind the column and kissed.

"Wha--"

"Shut up," Daiki advises, moving his knees apart with one hand. His other hand's under Taiga's shirt, undoing his belt.

"Daiki, are you insane?" Taiga protests. "Someone will see us--"

"Relax," Daiki murmurs in his ear. "I'm just teasing you a little." Then he's gone.

Taiga stares after him in bewilderment.

When he tells Tetsu about what happened as they walk home after classes, Tetsu looks up with a start. "He did the same thing to me yesterday. My first afternoon class was a seminar so I felt really uncomfortable until my boner went away."

"Think he's lonely?"

"Dai-kun? I don't think that's possible; he always has people around him."

"Maybe we should ask him out to lunch tomorrow."

They do, and then again the next day, and by the time the rains depart the region, they're having lunch together every day.

-

Though the humidity is especially bad today, breathing's easier than ever, and that's before Taiga walks into the air-conditioned shopping arcade.

Midterms are over, and Tetsu and Daiki have decided to stay at the apartment for the summer break -- both have found temp jobs nearby. Tetsu's going to be helping out in the graduate students' daycare facility, and Daiki's been asked to assist in coaching a nearby middle school's basketball team. His team-play development training has brought out a side of him that really loves teaching basketball fundamentals.

Taiga doesn't need a job, strictly speaking, but he figures he'll look around the shopping arcade to see if anyone's hiring, though midterms are already over and all the student jobs have probably been snapped up.

He spots Tatsuya walking out of Daiso and does a double take. "Tatsuya?" _In a suit?_

"Taiga? Holy crap!"

They slap hands and walk aside so as not to block the shop exit.

"What are you doing here?" Taiga asks. "And thanks for ignoring my messages, jerk."

"Sorry," Tatsuya says, ducking a little. "I had to change my number -- it's complicated. I thought I sent you the new one but I guess not."

"You still at UCLA?"

"Yeah -- engineering, back in September. I'm doing a little work on a project at Kanagawa U. How about you, still at Tokai?"

Taiga grins. "Obviously, or why would I be looking for part time work in a hole like this?"

Tatsuya grins back. "Sounds serious. What about basketball?" He reaches out to lift the chain around Taiga's neck with one finger.

Taiga flushes slightly, but he can see Tatsuya's chain under his collar. "Second string, now. Do you remember Aomine, from Touou?"

Tatsuya's eyes widen. "No way, are you on the same team as that monster?"

"Yeah, and neither of us is a starter."

Tatsuya finally releases Taiga's chain. "Oh, that must have fucked him right up. He's kind of an arrogant prick, isn't he?"

"Nah, he's changed a lot. We're actually roommates. Kuroko, too."

"Your little shadow partner with the killer pass? No way. That sounds really cool. Well, tell them both I said hi. Listen, I gotta run back to work, but here's my new number," -- he hands Taiga a business card with a practiced movement -- "give me a call later, we'll go out for drinks."

"Perfect timing, I turn twenty next week," Taiga says.

Tatsuya gives him a one-armed hug and walks out onto the street. Taiga stares after him, running his thumb over the embossing on the business card. _Himuro Tatsuya, Junior Research Partner, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Kanagawa University_. How quickly things change. He realises he forgot to ask if Tatsuya still played basketball.

He takes a breath and looks around, wondering where to start looking for a job in a place like this. Then he gets another surprise as he sees Daiki looking at him from the men's bathroom entrance across the walkway.

"Hey," Taiga says, approaching him. Daiki grabs his arm and drags him into the bathroom.

Taiga's expecting another surprise kiss, but his smile slides off when he sees the fury in Daiki's eyes.

"What's wrong?" He reaches up to touch Daiki's hand, still clutching his upper arm, but Daiki lets go of him roughly, and Taiga stumbles back against a urinal.

"How long?" Daiki demands. "How long have you been fucking that guy?"

Taiga blinks. "Tatsuya? What the hell are you talking about -- I haven't seen him in years. We just met by accident--"

Daiki grabs the chain around Taiga's neck and yanks it with so much force that it breaks. The ring falls to the floor with a horrible metallic _clink_.

"What do you think you're doing?" Taiga shouts, looking around for the ring. He can't see it; it must have rolled away.

Daiki's laugh is derisive, mocking. "That's right, that thing's so important to you, you don't even take it off when we fuck. I always wondered why, but I guess I know now."

"Like I told you, I just ran into him by chance. What the hell's gotten into you?"

"Is that what you're gonna tell Tetsu, too? You're gonna look in his eyes and tell him you just met by chance. You're gonna deny being all touchy-feely with him, huh?" Taiga's chain is still in Daiki's clenched fist, and he shakes it in front of Taiga's face.

Taiga's done trying to restrain his anger. "Why the hell are you bringing Tetsu into it?" he yells. "You're the one who's flipping your shit over me having a conversation with a guy I've known longer than either of you--"

"See? You even admit he's more important to you!"

"I'm admitting nothing! Tatsuya is like my brother, that's all he ever was. It's like you're accusing me of wanting to sleep with my old man, listen to yourself."

"You once said that Tetsu was like a brother to you."

"Why are you so determined make this about Tetsu? He's not even here." Suddenly Taiga remembers what Daiki had started to say on the day the three of them started their relationship.

_Tetsu's the one I--_

At the time, Taiga thought that Daiki was trying to save face, but that was just his own arrogance, wasn't it? He wanted so badly to believe that Daiki felt anything other than animal lust for him that he rushed to confess his own feelings, and of course Daiki was left with no choice but accept Taiga's feelings if he wanted Tetsu. That was Tetsu's condition, after all.

From the start, Daiki resisted anything non-sexual from Taiga. From the start, Daiki always insisted that Tetsu sit either next to him or in the middle whenever they went out together, be it a basketball game or the movies. Tetsu always sleeps in the middle, too; Daiki has never lain down next to Taiga. Trying to keep a distance.

Taiga has noticed all of these things, every time, but he never confronted what they meant, because it was easier to think he had Daiki's affection the same way Tetsu did. It would have hurt to think otherwise, and Taiga put too much of himself on the line as it was.

_I'm just the necessary evil to him. He can't have Tetsu without me but really I'm just in his way._

"I see how it is," Taiga says. His chest feels really cold and tight. "It must have pissed you off real bad to force yourself to play along with Tetsu all this time."

"What the fuck are you babbling about?" Daiki asks, but Taiga can barely hear him.

"You want me gone, I'll get myself gone. I never meant to be in your way, believe me. I only thought -- I only wanted-- no, forget it, this is just sad, you don't even care."

" _Taiga_ \--"

"Don't you fucking dare say my name any more. I'll die happy if I never see your smug face again."

Taiga tears out of the bathroom and ducks into the ceramic shop next to Daiso, across the way. With his brain so messed up, he needs a few minutes to compose himself. Part of him hopes that Daiki will come running after him, that it's all some kind of misunderstanding, but Daiki doesn't emerge until a good five minutes later. He hangs a left without so much as a look around, and then he's lost in the afternoon crowd. _It figures that the last I see of him is his back._

"Is there anything in particular you're looking for, young man?"

The diminutive shopkeeper is looking up at him with a slightly fearful expression. Taiga looks around, sees all the delicate bowls and glasses, catches a glimpse of his face in a sliver of vitrine. An angry large man in this shop is probably her worst nightmare.

"I'm sorry," he says, bowing himself out. "I entered by mistake."

He heads out of the shopping arcade and to the riverbank, where he finds shelter from the sun under a bridge, spooking a covey of middle-school girls seated on the grass nearby. He wants to apologise to them, too, but they're gone before he can open his mouth.

Taiga turns off his phone and huddles under the bridge, looking out at the river as the day ebbs.

Could he be wrong?

_He didn't come after me._

But only last month, Daiki chased him down on campus just to kiss him, get him all excited, and run off; that kind of juvenile thing was exactly what passed for romance in Daiki's brain.

_He did that to Tetsu first. He probably only did it with me for Tetsu's benefit._

When they were alone, Daiki never kissed him for no reason. He sometimes wanted to fuck, but usually he just ignored Taiga or condescended to play video games together. They didn't have conversations the way Taiga and Tetsu did, not outside basketball.

_And I thought. I thought. I thought nothing, that's what; I thought I could trust him because Tetsu trusts him._

Daiki never wanted to walk the dog alone with Taiga, but he always went if Tetsu asked him.

_I need to leave._

When he gets to the apartment, it's dark -- no one is home: Tetsu must be walking Nigou, and Daiki's got work tonight. A hopeful part of him did imagine Daiki skipping work and coming home, but he knows that's silly. Daiki would do that in a heartbeat for Tetsu, but Taiga's just a needless fixture in Daiki's sex life.

He turns his phone back on and hates himself for hoping for a mail from Daiki. There isn't one. Tetsu sent one to both of them earlier asking if he should pick up milk or if one of them's on it already. Daiki didn't reply to that one, either, but for all Taiga knows he did after removing Taiga's address from the recipient field.

Taiga makes three calls -- one to his father's voice mail in LA, one to the landlord, and one to a cab company. He gathers clothes and bathroom bric-a-brac into his battered suitcase but leaves all the textbooks and binders and stationery detritus alone -- he'll worry about school later. He's got two months to figure it out. He leaves all his basketball gear behind too; too many memories. He'll just buy all new stuff when he gets home.

 _Here_ was _home just this morning._

The front door creaks, and Nigou's nails click across the hallway floor. "I'm home," Tetsu calls.

Taiga winces but doesn't reply. This isn't fair to Tetsu, he knows that, but it would not be fair to any of them if he stayed.

"Tai-kun, what are you doing?" Tetsu asks, walking in.

Nigou bounds up to the couch and plants himself in the suitcase, anxiously nosing at Taiga's hands.

"I'm going to LA," Taiga says, ignoring Nigou. "Aomine doesn't want me here." _I can't even say his name._

Tetsu makes a face, as though Daiki's surname out of Taiga's mouth hurts him. "He said that to you?"

Taiga shoos the dog out of the suitcase and flips it shut. "He didn't need to."

"Are you sure you're not overreacting? I don't understand what happened, but shouldn't all three of us talk about it?"

Taiga can't look at him. "You're right, we should, but we won't, because I'm not stepping on the same rake twice." _Not even for your sake._

"So it's all about you and Dai-kun. What am I? The family cat?" Tetsu asks. _Oh, fuck, he's really angry._

"I love you, Tetsu," Taiga says. "You're not a cat. So don't ask me to make you choose."

"Aren't you already doing that by leaving? Making me choose."

Taiga's eyes begin to hurt. "If me walking away lets you see your way to a clear choice then I guess that's how it is." _Was I wrong about both of them? Was I just an amusing sideshow for them, a freak in love with two people at once?_

If he starts thinking about it, he'll break the fuck down. Taiga walks out into the hallway. The suitcase is heavy, probably overweight, but that shouldn't matter if he buys a first-class ticket.

"Here," he says, holding out the apartment keys from his pocket towards Tetsu. "You can live here as long as you need to. I've squared it with Ueda. We can talk about the money later."

Tetsu doesn't make a move for the keys, so Taiga lets them drop to the floor. It's a different sound from the one Tatsuya's ring made on the bathroom tiles, but both are like doors slamming shut forever.

Tetsu does move then, closer to Taiga, still ignoring the keys. "Don't leave."

He twines his arms around Taiga's neck and kisses him, and it's so sweet and real and reassuring that Taiga's ready to throw the suitcase down and stay, but he won't. Something like this can't be fixed, not with kisses, not with talking. Nobody can force themselves to feel a certain way, and even though Taiga no longer doubts Tetsu, Daiki made his feelings clear from the beginning.

Taiga pulls away and shoulders past Tetsu, who sighs with resignation.

"I'm sorry," Taiga says in the doorway, not looking back. Tetsu does not respond.

He lets the door close. _Click_.

Behind it, Nigou whines.

Taiga doesn't bother waiting for the elevator; he flees down the stairs and into the waiting taxi.

He doesn't look up at the balcony; Nigou is up there, barking furiously in a hurt voice.

[to be concluded]


	5. Daiki

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Featuring pigeon crap and litter, bizarre tips for airfare savings, the stark difference between dreams and reality, Kagami's talent as errand boy, an uneventful family scandal, a message from Kise, a daily life in pieces and in brief, unexpected gymnastics, Kuroko's latent talent for social engineering, a flying leap and a long explanation, the logic of selfless behaviour, the importance of staying hydrated, the relativity of distance, another way of looking at compound interest, memory of the longest night, Aomine's talent for making absolutely everything worse than it should be, and an anthropomorphic lizard. Also, basketball.

*

It's the same damn dream again.

Taiga sits on a bench in a generic-looking park you'd see in a TV ad for incontinence medicine or Cheerios: trees, grass, pond. Pigeon crap and litter, not pictured. A medium-sized black-and-white dog trots up to him and deposits a stick on the smooth ground by Taiga's grimy steel-toed boots.

"I once lived with a dog who looked exactly like you," Taiga tells it. "His name was Nigou."

"Arf!" says the dog and wags its tail.

In this dream, it's been nine years since Taiga left Japan. He flunked out of school, quit basketball, grew a ponytail and is bouncing from one drug money-fuelled construction project to another. His parents found out he was gay and threw him out of the house; he lives on the creepy side of the tracks and has no friends -- the locals all scattered when the money ran out, and he's had no contact with anyone from Japan since leaving.

What the hell a guy like him is doing sitting on a sunlit bench in a TV-perfect park and talking to a dog is anyone's guess, but dreams are weird.

"There you are," says a voice Taiga never forgot, the epitome of aural serenity. He looks up, and Tetsu hasn't changed at all if you don't count the custom-fitted pale grey suit.

Tetsu sits down on the other end of the bench. The dog bounds up and settles between them: the world's smelliest chaperone.

"It took a long time to find you, Tai-kun," Tetsu says.

Taiga doesn't know how to answer that, so he doesn't. This is a dream, anyway; it's not like anything he says will matter. If he were one of those lucid dreaming types, he could dream himself and Tetsu right into their bed beside a Daiki who wants them both there, but he's had this dream enough times to know that's not going to happen even here.

"Going to ignore us?" Tetsu asks.

 _Us?_ Taiga turns to look. The dog's turned into Daiki, and now the bench is too small. This hasn't happened in previous dreams, so he gapes openly. Daiki hasn't changed at all, and Taiga decides he's just not very good at imagining what people look like when they're older.

"Turning Dai-kun into a dog let us buy cheaper tickets," Tetsu explains. "He'll have to fly back as a human, though, because there's a quarantine for pets coming to Japan."

The three of them sit side by side on the bench and stare mutely at never-changing scenery until Taiga's alarm goes off and it's time for his morning run.

In reality, Taiga's been in LA for a month and a half.

He hasn't flunked out of school, but he has to make a decision about it within the next week. Should he go back and find new living arrangements and try to keep out of Tetsu's and Daiki's way during practice? He could also transfer to another Tokai campus, like Kumamoto in Kyushu. They offer his program, and one of the girls from his intro to econ seminar transferred there last year to be closer to her dying aunt or someone like that. It's certainly far enough away.

Switching schools entirely in the middle of the year would be a pain in the ass. He could also start fresh at a US university, but he'd lose at least six months; over here, school terms are differently timed, and he'd have to get all sorts of paperwork to transfer the meagre credits he's earned at Toka so far. First he'd have to find a school that would let him transfer in the first place. _Maybe this is all an elaborate sign I should drop the fuck out and focus on basketball._

He hasn't grown a ponytail, though it's true he needs a haircut. His current style is starting the slow creep into mullet territory.

His summer job at his dad's downtown office requires no safety gear and involves mostly delivering memos, making coffee, and keeping the lunchroom clean, with the occasional library research project on market trends, like the one he's just picked up on Monday. Riveting stuff.

During a family outing to Yosemite, Taiga told his parents he was gay, but they didn't throw him out of the house or even off a cliff. Taiga's motivation in telling them was to get the inevitable rejection over with, since this seems to be his year for heartbreak, but they didn't even blink. His mom just stopped trying to hook him up with a nice _nisei_ young woman and started recommending nice _nisei_ young men, though much less frequently.

He hasn't lost any friends. Except Tetsu. He has ignored every mail Taiga sent him and didn't pick up whenever Taiga tried to call. Taiga finally gave up after a week of daily trying: he got a mail from Kise, who must've come back home for the break from up north and taken the opportunity to visit the Shonan basketball club.
    
    
     **Subject:** Kagamicchi~~!
    
    
     **Text:** I came to visit but you aren't here (‘A`)
    
    
    I wanted to play 1-on-1 with you for old time's sake.
    
    
    I hope the weather is nice in America!
    
    
    Maybe I'll see you next year. 八(＾□＾*)
    
    
    P.S. I tried my best to follow Kurokocchi with the camera. ヽ(*⌒∇⌒*)ﾉ

Attached was a shaky one-minute video of a practice game with Tetsu and Daiki on the court. Taiga stopped it halfway. He was nursing a misguided, vile hope that maybe Tetsu wasn't responding because something serious happened to him. But if he was well enough to attend the summer practice sessions, he was well enough to answer the phone. _I guess he felt he had to make a choice, so he did._

That night he watched the video five times before erasing Kise's message. Then he erased Daiki's number and Tetsu's, too. If that's how Tetsu wants it, Taiga would just have Ueda transfer the lease to the other two against a digital signature. He wonders if they'll be okay for rent money. He wonders if they're eating properly.

He misses them.

Every morning he reaches for them. Every morning, bone-deep loneliness replacing bleary-eyed confusion as both his hands find nothing but cold sheets stretched on a bed too large for one but too small for three.

It's easier when he runs, when he goes to work, when he drives out to the beach to stare at the planes flying Asia-ward, to imagine that the bittersalt air he's breathing will reach Tetsu and Daiki in Japan someday. It's easier when he's shooting hoops with the guys from the neighbourhood, when he goes down to see Alex and the new generation of brats she's raising, when he helps his mother cook, when he plays video games with his dad. Alone and idle, he goes to pieces.

His folks left for a six-month Europe business trip last week; they parted with long good-byes because they expect him to be back in Japan when they return. What if he isn't? Will they get angry? Will they think it's because he's gay? How is he going to handle being all alone in the house, anyway?

He fills his shopping basket with enough food for three -- thinking not of his parents but of Daiki and Tetsu -- and then quietly takes the excess back to the shelves. Sometimes he puts it all back and gets some prefab or frozen shit. It all tastes like nothing anyway, whether he cooks it or nukes it. He might as well be buying plastic food like Daiki did that one time when they first moved in together. But they don't sell that here, and thinking about that night hurts.

_I should never have said anything to either of them. I should have known nothing good would come out of it all._

Sometimes he catches himself deciding between an ugly rubbery bone and a bag of doggy treats as he remembers he doesn't have a dog at home. Maybe he should get one. Maybe he would be less lonely. But that would mean deciding to stay here.

Taiga jogs, showers, drives to work, makes coffee, delivers it to the execs, pores over market research, flirts back half-heartedly with Susan from Accounts Receivable -- who knows he's gay so he's not sure of her angle -- orders lunch for the noon meeting, sits in on the meeting, more graphs and statistics, memos, then the painted chrome wall of LA traffic, freeway exit, driveway, home. Tetsu sitting on the porch steps.

_Wait, what?_

Taiga slams the car door and practically vaults over the hood to make sure he isn't hallucinating. "Tetsu?"

"Hello, Tai-kun," Tetsu says, getting to his feet. "Could we talk?"

Taiga nods, not sure what to say or do. He's had that bench dream a bunch of times but he never actually thought Tetsu would come here.

"How did you know where this place is?" he asks, gesturing for Tetsu to follow him up the steps.

"I asked Ueda-san when I dropped off the rent. Said we'd misplaced your address. Are you angry?"

"What? No, of course I'm not angry," Taiga says, rummaging in his pocket for the house keys. He can't seem to get a grip on them. "Did you book a hotel?"

"Yeah, the Holiday Inn on, umm--"

Taiga cuts him off. "Call them and cancel. You can stay here; my parents are on a trip." _A ticket to LA at this time of year must have set him back at least a month's rent. Shit!_

Tetsu walks down to the sidewalk and makes the call. Taiga watches him hungrily, noting the thumb hooked into the bottom of his pants pocket, the back of his white shirt rumpled from when he was sitting on the porch, the way he scuffs the ground with the toe of his sneaker. _Why'd he go all the way there? He isn't still embarrassed about his English in front of me, is he?_

By the time Tetsu returns, Taiga's got the keys out and is holding the door open.

"Excuse me for intruding," Tetsu says as he steps inside. It's a damned strange thing to hear in this neighbourhood.

Taiga locks the door, switches the lights on and steps back to get a better, closer look at Tetsu. "You've lost weight," he says. "You're not eating proper--"

Tetsu takes a flying leap and then he's hanging off Taiga's neck, all fifty or so skinny kilos of him, toes barely on the ground. Taiga crushes him to his chest, heart pounding like it's got no time left. Tetsu smells like he's just got done with practice and his body is so warm; he must've been on that porch for _hours_. Taiga tries to hug him even closer, and Tetsu buries his face in Taiga's shirt, small shoulders trembling.

"I missed you so much," Tetsu says, his voice high-pitched and raw.

There's a lump in Taiga's throat. He won't cry, god damn it. He didn't even cry when Seirin lost the Winter Cup. He's not going to cry.

"Don't cry, Tai-kun," Tetsu says, tilting his head up. His eyes are wet.

"I missed you," Taiga manages through gritted teeth. _Did I really convince myself Tetsu doesn't care?_

"I'm sorry I ignored your mails," Tetsu says. "It was stupid -- I kept telling myself that you would get so angry that you'd come back just to yell at me for ignoring you. Then you stopped writing and I got so worried something bad happened to you that I was afraid to mail you in case I got a message back from your parents telling me something awful." He's speaking so fast that half the syllables are swallowed in shaky breaths. "I'm sorry I didn't come sooner." He sniffs. "I'm sorry I didn't try harder to make you stay."

Taiga kisses his cheek. "Hey, none of this was your fault," he says. "You just got caught in the middle, like you said."

Tetsu shakes his head. "No. I should've seen it coming. Dai-kun can be phenomenally stupid about some things, and so can you; I let myself forget that I'm not a perfect person either. I knew you were unhappy about the way Dai-kun treated you; I saw it but didn't do anything about it because I didn't want to get caught in the middle. But how are we supposed to make it work with one another if we only rely on ourselves?"

"We're not," Taiga says. "I'm sorry, Tetsu, but I think the three of us are finished."

Tetsu's eyes flash with pure pain. "Then why didn't you just throw Dai-kun out? You could have -- his name's not even on the lease. You could've tried to turn me against him but you didn't even try. Why did _you_ leave?"

Taiga frowns. "It was-- he wanted me gone, so I left. I said we were finished as -- I dunno, a threesome, I guess, I've never known what to call us. I didn't say I feel nothing for him or you. If I move aside, he gets what he wants and you get at least part of what you want."

"And you?"

Taiga shrugs. "And I get nothing. I'm not the one I'm in love with."

"You should try being selfish outside basketball sometimes," Tetsu says, releasing Taiga's neck and stepping back to look at him.

Taiga looks away. "I'm not trying to be especially unselfish."

"If you try to be unselfish so people think you aren't selfish, you're being selfish in the first place," Tetsu says, bending down to untie his shoes.

"I don't really understand what you're trying to say."

Tetsu sways and tips forward suddenly, his arms shooting out to seek purchase. Taiga holds out his hand, helps him up.

"I think I'm a little dehydrated," Tetsu says, apologetic.

"Dumbass." Taiga helps him get his other shoe off and shepherds him onto the living room couch, then walks to the fridge and tosses Tetsu a blue Gatorade. "It's really gross but this is the least vile-tasting kind."

"They don't have Pocari in America?" Tetsu asks, opening the bottle.

"They do but it's hard to get and really expensive because it's imported. Why didn't you go buy a drink while you were waiting?"

"I thought about going to a convenience store but I didn't want to miss you. It takes a really long time to walk between places here."

Taiga's become so used to driving already that he forgot that the nearest gas station is only five minutes away if you drive, not if you walk. "Even if you missed me arriving, you could've rung the doorbell," he says, sitting down and placing another Gatorade in front of Tetsu, who's already finished with the first one.

"Thank you. I was a little afraid you wouldn't want to see me."

"Why the hell would you even think a thing like that?" Taiga asks, turning to him with wide eyes.

Tetsu puts the second Gatorade back down on the coffee table, crawls across the couch on his knees to Taiga.

"I love you, Tai-kun," he says. "I've loved you since you wiped the floor with me in first year of high school and then agreed to be my partner anyway."

Taiga doesn't even remember when he fell for Tetsu, not any more. It feels like he's been in love with him forever, like everything before they met -- his interests, his passions, even his basketball -- were all stepping stones to being able to relate to Tetsu.

"I--" he begins, not sure how to convey his thoughts in a way that doesn't sound so goddamned codependent, but Tetsu kisses him before he can speak. Taiga pulls him into his lap, returning the kiss with compound interest, trying to touch every part of Tetsu his hands can reach. When they pull apart, breathless, Tetsu gives Taiga his first real smile since they met on the porch. A blue-lipped smile.

"I'll never complain about the taste of Gatorade again," Taiga mutters with a half-smile in response. _Is this really okay?_

Tetsu snuggles into Taiga's lap, looking for all the world like a bear about to winter.

"How long are you staying?" Taiga asks. "In LA, I mean."

"A week," Tetsu says. "School starts in two."

Taiga doesn't want to talk about school.

"What about... him?" Taiga can't say Daiki's name; he's not sure why, since Daiki isn't even here. "Isn't he pissed that you went to see me?"

Tetsu shifts to look at Taiga. "Look, Dai-kun is Dai-kun, and you are you. You're _both_ mine. You and I are both Dai-kun's. Dai-kun and I are both yours. That's how I want it. I know that's how you want it too. Dai-kun wants the same thing. We all want the same thing."

"If that guy wants me so much, why didn't he come with you?" Taiga blurts.

He wants to take it back. He doesn't want even Tetsu to know how badly he needs Daiki to be here too. Because what he feels for Tetsu, he feels for Daiki too, and no matter how happy he feels with a lapful of Tetsu, he misses their third.

"Oh, he's on his way. You did tell him you would die happy if you never saw his face again. He took that pretty badly."

"I didn't mean any of that."

"I know, Tai-kun." Tetsu reaches up to stroke his hair, and Taiga is suddenly aware of the first part of what he just heard. His heart begins to race.

"Hold up, did you say he was on his way? From Japan?"

"No, he was waiting at the hotel. That was him on the phone earlier."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I wanted to talk without you waiting for him the whole time," Tetsu says, his face serious. "Sometimes it's okay to be selfish, Tai-kun."

Taiga considers this and realises that he _would_ have been anxious for Daiki to arrive, maybe to the point of not even caring about what Tetsu was saying, figuring it could wait until they were together.

But Tetsu's right: the two of them had to talk just like this, and he and Daiki need to talk, though Taiga doubts much good will come of it. Daiki is good at basketball, idol trivia and fucking. He's terrible at cooking, mini-golf, and discussing his -- or anyone's -- feelings. At that last thing, he's even worse than Taiga, and that's saying a lot.

"I don't know," he says to Tetsu. "I'm not sure what to say to him. I know you think he cares, and I want to believe you, but me wanting to believe you and not getting in his face about stuff was what got us here in the first place."

"What got us here is that Dai-kun is an insensitive jerk," Tetsu says with so much heat that Taiga's taken aback. "He's selfish too often."

"Okay, tell me how you relly feel," Taiga mutters. _Why do I feel like defending Daiki? Tetsu's right._

Tetsu sighs. "Dai-kun was really surprised when he got home the night you left. He thought you were just being dramatic because he really suspected that you and Himuro-kun had something going on." He pulls Taiga's arms tighter around himself. "Which of course you didn't, and I told him that. I told him that I would have noticed if you were doing anything like cheating."

"When Dai-kun realised he was wrong, he asked where you were. After I explained, he yelled at me for not stopping you, then wanted to go to the airport to bring you back. I talked him out of it. I knew that if we went after you and failed, Dai-kun would blame _you_ , because when he gets like this, he's incapable of seeing his own faults."

 _You're talking like he's capable of seeing his own faults on regular days._ "How did you manage to talk him out of it?"

"I told him that you were probably spending the night in a hotel, since most of the ticket counters would be closed at that time of the night, so you'd need to wait until morning to get a ticket."

 _That's exactly what happened._ It was one of the longest nights of Taiga's life, wide awake in a narrow hotel bed, listening to infomercials and wondering if he should go back or at least turn his phone back on and see if he had any messages.

"Then he wanted to call every hotel around the airport and find out where you were staying. I asked him why didn't he try calling you directly, and he got really quiet and sad. Dai-kun is bad at apologising and people usually don't accept his apology, even if it's in person. I didn't push it, and we went to bed. By morning he was angry with you, saying it wasn't his fault you assumed a bunch of wrong things about his feelings and that you overreacted by running away. Then--"

The doorbell rings. Taiga feels like he needs to hear the rest of this before facing Daiki, but Tetsu's already off his lap and unscrewing the second Gatorade with an expression of studious disinterest.

Taiga heads to the front entrance. _Well, at least he does care. Tetsu wouldn't lie to me about something like this._

He swings the door open, guts churning with dread and hope. Daiki's huge frame blots out the street outside; Taiga's entire field of vision narrows to him. He stands there, dressed in his usual cargos and an open-collar black polo shirt, as improbably gorgeous as ever, and the only thing missing is the cruel smile that destroyed Taiga's defenses all those years ago. Now that Taiga believes he understands everything, seeing Daiki makes him think he doesn't want to talk, he just wants Daiki's arms around him, Daiki's heart next to his.

"Aomine."

"Kagami."

Taiga's body moves on its own, lurching towards Daiki in a confused stumble, pulling him across the doorway and swinging the door shut, hiding him jealously from the world. He shoves Daiki back against the door, fists near his collar, wanting to rip it open and tear it off, mouth and throat drying out as blood rushes to his private parts from the heady closeness. Daiki's lips find Taiga's, but he doesn't use his tongue; he kisses Taiga's mouth once, then steadies Taiga's head with his hands and kisses his forehead, his cheeks, his nose, his eyelids; it feels like a hundred, two hundred kisses, as if he's trying to make up for the ones he never gave.

Daiki pauses to look at Taiga -- dark eyes, anxious eyes -- and kisses his mouth again, more forcefully, and this time Taiga slides his tongue between Daiki's parted lips, and Daiki's arms enfold him as he kisses back. Taiga moans into his mouth, lets go of Daiki's shirt, slips his arms around Daiki's torso as Daiki's arms go around his shoulders. Daiki steps forward, moving them away from the door.

Taiga can't keep kissing him; it's too hard to breathe. He wrenches his mouth free, bows his head, presses his temple to the side of Daiki's neck.

Daiki's arms tighten around him. "You dumb shit."

"Takes one to know one," Taiga mumbles to Daiki's collarbone. He feels like crying again, but it's easier not to, this time.

Behind them, dramatic battle music fills the air. Taiga turns around and finds Tetsu on the floor in front of the TV, having discovered Kagami Senior's Xbox and the latest installment of Planet X Fighting Tournament.

"Tetsu's been into these things lately," Daiki tells him. "I had a feeling that he'd want to play at your house, too."

"That's not a feeling, it's logical deduction," Taiga says. "Not that you would know the difference."

"Shut up, muscle-brain, I am a very logical person."

Tetsu makes something explode in the game. "Oh yes, so logical that you went off on your own in a sulk and did a lot of stupid stuff instead of just fixing things with Tai-kun."

_What kind of stupid stuff did he do? Tetsu is still pissed, and he hasn't even tried to come near us._

"Don't start. I already said it was my bad."

Tetsu doesn't look away from the game. "Not to Tai-kun, you haven't. And I didn't say I'll forgive you, either."

Daiki sighs and moves back from Taiga, holding him by the shoulders at arm's length. His face bears the expression of a man about to face his most bitter rival.

"I-- I'd never been jealous before," he says quietly. "I didn't know how to handle it and I put it all on you." He releases Taiga's shoulders. "Trying to make it sound like I was looking out for Tetsu. Instead of, you know, just admitting I was scared of losing you. That was stupid."

"That's the worst apology I've ever heard," Taiga says, pulling him in. "But probably the best one you've ever offered, so just give me some sugar and I'll accept it."

"I wouldn't rush into forgiving this guy," Tetsu remarks, but Taiga can barely hear him.

He's got Daiki's arms around him and Daiki's tongue in his mouth, and truthfully he would forgive either of them anything short of rape or murder. He knows it makes him vulnerable and he knows it'll hurt him again, but he'd rather live with that possibility forever than spend another day without them.

Daiki's kisses grow impatient, his hands slide down to Taiga's ass, pressing, kneading; Taiga's dick stiffens against the friction of Daiki's erection. Taiga tugs at Daiki's arms, forcing them both down to kneel on the hardwood; he's clutching at Daiki's clothes and wants Tetsu to drop the fucking game and join them. "Get behind me," he tells Daiki as they pull apart to breathe.

Daiki does, runs his hands up Taiga's chest, tongues and bites at the nape of his neck. "Your hair's longer," he murmurs. "I like it."

"Tetsu," Taiga says, staring at Tetsu's back as his character delivers a complicated triple kick to its opponent. "You joining us any time soon?"

"Tetsu said he wants to watch us fuck," Daiki says, breathless. "Didn't you, Tetsu?" There's a careful edge to his voice that Taiga can't understand.

Tetsu pauses the game, puts down the controller, and turns around to regard them with his unflappable blue stare. "I said that last week, Dai-kun."

"Does that mean you don't want it any more?"

"Dai-kun, you have a gift for ignoring context," Tetsu replies. "You were having a temper tantrum about me coming here and I said you should come with me because I want to see you and Tai-kun making love again."

"So you do want it," Daiki says smugly.

"You really are a complete idiot," Taiga says, elbowing him. "The point is he wants the three of us back together, not that he wants to become a professional voyeur for the two of us."

"Who said anything about being professional?" Daiki asks, fiddling with the middle button on Taiga's shirt. "And since when do you wear things like this?"

"Since I have an office job," Taiga says, gesturing for Tetsu to come over.

Tetsu puts down the controller and walks to stand in front of Taiga, who grabs his hips and yanks him down to his knees as Daiki finally gives up the buttons as a bad job and rips Taiga's shirt open. Taiga kisses Tetsu, deep and furious, eyes shut and blood on fire. Tetsu undoes Taiga's pants, and Daiki lifts him up a little to help Tetsu slide them off below his knees. The air is cool and shocking against Taiga's erection but not as shocking as the slide of Tetsu's tongue up the length of it as Tetsu's hands push his legs apart.

All this -- Tetsu's fingers on his thighs, Daiki's hands on his chest, Taiga's pulse exploding beneath both sets of fingertips -- makes Taiga remember the first time. He's helpless against Daiki's steadying bulk, against Tetsu's sinful, greedy mouth engulfing him, drawing pleasure out of him like poison from a snakebite. He lets his head fall back against Daiki's shoulder and exhales a shuddering moan.

"Wait, Tetsu, let me do it. I want to finish it," Daiki pants, and Taiga's temporarily disoriented as Daiki's gone and Tetsu takes his place, his fingers cool on Taiga's pecs, his still-blue lips sticky against Taiga's tongue. He struggles to look down at Daiki in his lap, wetting his fingers in his mouth and hauling Taiga's pelvis up to expose his ass, rubbing wet circles around his hole as his mouth picks up where Tetsu left off. Taiga jerks forward, wanting to come, to flood Daiki's mouth with it, to give Daiki what he wanted, but Tetsu places a hand on his belly, restraining his movement.

"Call his name, Tai-kun," Tetsu urges.

"Dai...ki," Taiga moans. "Daiki."

Daiki's finger slips into him, swift and a little painful, curls against that spot that makes Taiga feel like he's about to come, eases off, then pushes again, all while Daiki's sucking his cock in that noisy, delighted way that only Daiki's capable of. Tetsu's dick is pressed against his lower back, hard, and Taiga writhes between Tetsu's drawn-up knees that keep him from moving around.

"You're so sexy when you're like this," Tetsu says to him, flicking his tongue lazily against the shell of Taiga's right ear.

"Trapped and at your mercy?" Taiga breathes out at him, gasping as Daiki sucks harder.

"Mm, no," Tetsu replies, rubbing Taiga's left nipple with a wet thumb. "About to come and fighting it. Why do you always fight it?"

 _Let go,_ Daiki's voice from long ago echoes in Taiga's head, and so he does, and it's so good he thinks he might have screamed, but he's too addled to be sure. He sags against Tetsu as Daiki licks him clean, then moves up to kiss Taiga. Daiki's always had a thing for making them both taste their own come. _Pervert._

After Daiki pulls back, Taiga expects him to lean over and kiss Tetsu, but he doesn't.

"Is it okay if I use your shower?" he asks instead.

"Yeah," Taiga says, surprised -- there's a strange inflection in Daiki's voice and he's avoiding looking at Tetsu. "My room's upstairs, come on, I'll get you a towel."

He pulls his pants up after a brief struggle and tugs Tetsu up with him.

"Your house is huge, Tai-kun," Tetsu remarks as they sit down on Taiga's bed after Daiki disappears into the bathroom.

"Way too big for just three of us," Taiga says with a small shrug. "What's going on with you and Daiki?"

"We can talk about it after he comes out. Ah, but I want to take a shower too, is that all right?"

"Of course it's fine," Taiga says. He hates how troubled Tetsu looks.

Daiki comes out five minutes later, naked, his clothes under his arm. He starts putting them back on as Tetsu goes into the bathroom, but Taiga pulls him to the bed. "We weren't done," he says, straddling Daiki and wrapping his fingers around his half-hard dick.

Daiki closes his eyes and draws Taiga down by the neck to kiss him. "We're not ever gonna be done," he murmurs, sending Taiga's blood pressure back through the roof.

"Aren't you two cute," Tetsu says, climbing over Taiga to lie down by the wall.

Taiga takes his turn in the shower. When he comes out, Tetsu and Daiki are lying side by side. Their hands are joined in the air between them but the uncomfortable tension is still there.

"Tai-kun, we were wondering, why does your body wash smell like flowers?" Tetsu asks as Taiga climbs in between them. This bed is definitely too small for three people, but as long as they don't try to sleep here, they'll be fine.

Taiga blushes. "I forgot to buy some so I took a bottle from my mom's stash."

"I like it," Tetsu says. "It's much nicer-smelling than the men's stuff."

"That stuff always smells like pine needles," Daiki agrees, manhandling Taiga onto his side and pressing up against him. The damp warmth of him sends a new surge of lust through Taiga.

"Lube," Daiki says. "Do you have any?"

Taiga shakes his head. Tetsu's moved up to him and is rocking forward, making their dicks rub together in sweet rhythm.

"That's good," Tetsu says. "If you did, I might have become jealous." He folds a hand around both their cocks.

Taiga snorts. "That's rich, considering you two have been getting freaky on your own all this time." Sweat's beading on his forehead again as he helps Tetsu move with a hand on his ass.

"We broke up after you left," Tetsu says.

"Tetsu dumped me," Daiki adds, tugging Taiga's ass cheeks apart and sliding his cock between them. Taiga arches his back in delight at the full, hot length of him.

"I didn't dump you," Tetsu says, removing Taiga's hand from his ass and making him stroke them both. "I told you to think about what you did. Instead of doing that, you tried to fuck your way out of feeling bad."

Taiga freezes, tries to turn to Daiki, but Tetsu doesn't let him move. "You slept with someone else?" he asks. _So that's why Tetsu's been so weird._ He's suddenly hyper-aware that Daiki's body was in someone else's hands, reacting to someone else's kisses. He _hates_ it, so much that he wants to stop their languished slide against each other, but Tetsu gives him a look that says to wait.

Daiki kisses his shoulder, hesitant. "It meant nothing, and it was just-- I was just stupid. I'm sorry."

Taiga shuts his eyes. _So this is how Daiki felt when he saw me with Tatsuya._ It's insane, but for the first time he really understands why Daiki went ballistic. If not for Tetsu, Taiga would be snarling in Daiki's face right now. _And I have a real reason to._

"So how did you get back together?" he asks. There's a horrible empty space in his chest, waiting for the anger to rush in. It's amazing that his dick hasn't wilted.

"We didn't," Tetsu says, stroking Taiga's face. A flush has crept into his cheeks, and his rhythm is breaking.

"We did just now, dummy," Daiki says, pulling Taiga further back, his movements quickening.

Tetsu lifts an eyebrow. "Did we?"

"Are you still angry?"

"Of course I am," Tetsu snaps, crushing Taiga's fingers in his to increase the pressure on their dicks, making Taiga gasp. _Is this really how we're going to have this conversation? While trying to get off?_ "You cause all of this by accusing Tai-kun of cheating -- oh that's really good, Tai-kun, don't stop -- then you turn... around and -- oh -- cheat on us to try and make yourself... feel better. That -- was really immature."

Daiki squeezes Taiga's ass cheeks tighter against his own dick and breathes, "I didn't feel any better, for the record."

"Oh that's a relief," Tetsu gasps, leaning his head against Taiga's chest. "It totally makes up for seeing that girl's nail marks on your back."

"Can I kill this guy?" Taiga asks. Anger is rushing into that hollow in his chest now, and he wants to extricate himself and break Daiki's jaw, but Tetsu's coming, pumping his hips against Taiga's, head thrown back, neck exposed; Taiga can't just leave him.

"Stupid Dai-kun," Tetsu says after catching his breath.

Daiki, who has stopped to watch Tetsu finish, leans over Taiga's shoulder, pushing him down into the bed. "Tetsu. Taiga."

Tetsu looks at him. "If you really think sex can fix our problems, at least do it with us. "

"I've got it," Daiki says, straddling both of them as they are, side by side. "So don't be mad any more, all right?" Taiga looks at his face and realises with complete horror that he really _would_ forgive Daiki anything short of rape and murder.

Daiki kisses Tetsu, and then Taiga, and then all three of them are sharing a weird, noisy, awkward kiss; half the time Taiga has no idea whose tongue is in whose mouth and whose teeth are latched onto whose bottom lip. _I guess it was possible all along._

-

After another round, this time in the shower, Tetsu announces that he's going back downstairs to play Planet X.

"Are you a kid?" Taiga asks.

"I think I'm the only one here who's a kid," Daiki says, throwing an arm around Taiga's shoulders and dragging him to follow Tetsu.

When they get back downstairs, Daiki sprawls out on the living room floor with his head in Taiga's lap, pulls Taiga's head down and kisses him again. "So will you come back to Japan with us?"

Taiga's been expecting this question. "No," he says.

Daiki half-sits up to face him; his hands grip Taiga's head as though about to use it to score a three-pointer.

On the screen, Tetsu's character explodes in a shower of realistic gore.

"I have to finish up some work stuff first," Taiga adds, smirking. "I'll be back in time for the first club meeting."

"You fucking jerk," Daiki mutters low in his throat and bites into Taiga's bottom lip.

"That was really mean, Tai-kun," Tetsu agrees. His new character is a redhead in plate mail.

"I love you too," Taiga murmurs to Daiki, whose fingers still squeeze Taiga's skull with alarming force.

Their eyes meet, and Daiki's grip loosens. He drags his thumb across Taiga's eyebrow; Taiga kisses Daiki's palm. They have never been like this; both of them used to save this kind of thing for Tetsu, but Taiga guesses that's changed now. He presses his forehead to Daiki's and closes his eyes, breathing in the scent of Kenzo off his clothes. His chest tightens again; he didn't know how afraid he was that he'd never get close enough again to let Daiki's smell fill his head.

"I do love you, Taiga," Daiki whispers. Taiga's eyes fly open. _He's never said that before._

"Say it again." _I want to see his eyes when he says it._

Daiki does, his cheeks a deep crimson. "So don't leave again, okay?"

Taiga nods, and Daiki sits up, digs in his front pocket, draws out a silver chain. Tatsuya's ring dangles at the bottom. _He went back for it._

"You repaired it?" Taiga asks as Daiki moves to clasp the chain around his neck.

"Couldn't be fixed," Daiki says. "Bought a new one. Happy belated birthday?"

"I didn't get you anything," Taiga says, flushing. Daiki's birthday was two weeks ago.

"Dai-kun doesn't deserve any presents," Tetsu says, but there's no bite in his voice.

"Hey, you said you wouldn't stay mad," Daiki protests, crawling over to Tetsu's side on the rug. "Take that back."

"Shh, this is an important boss fight," Tetsu says. His facial expression suggests that if he doesn't survive this fight, he will personally die.

Taiga sits down cross-legged on Tetsu's other side, and Tetsu leans against his shoulder as his redhead battles an anthropomorphic lizard. Taiga's and Daiki's hands are next to each other on the floor behind Tetsu. After a moment's hesitation, Daiki puts his hand on top of Taiga's, and Taiga realises that even at his loneliest, he knew this would eventually happen, somehow.

Deep down, beneath logic and reason, beneath even intuition, in that special place called his soul, he knew. By some auspicious coincidence the three of them found each other, and it would take more than hurt feelings to separate them.

Maybe Tetsu has the right of it and people were never meant to pair up in the first place. Maybe three is magic. Or maybe they're just three weird guys with a matching fetish. Taiga doesn't really care -- all he knows is that he can't imagine being with one and not the other. It doesn't work, and he's glad he doesn't have to try.

Their last match may have ended up a near disaster, but the end of a match is never the end of the game.

_There's no helping it: basketball is a team sport, after all._

[end]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has followed this story to the end, and to everyone who has left comments and kudos! You guys are the best. ^^
> 
> Due to point of view limitations I wasn't able to write in more detail about certain scenes where Kagami isn't present; I might write them out as related one-shots in the future. If there's a particular scene like this that you would want to see, feel free to let me know.


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